Ml7 




Class Fjfyfa 
Book. M / 



Copyright^ . 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




%jtJ^&,^Uu^/ 



Martin B. Madden 

Public Servant 



A SKETCH 



BY 



Edgar Weston Brent 



CHICAGO 

1901 






THE L?3RARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

TWO Cor-168 KECEIvED 

NOV. 29 1901 

COPYFHGHT ENTRY 

CLASS Ou XXa Nu. 

2-/ C ?»T 
copy a 



Copyright, 1901 

BY 

EDGAR WESTON BRENT 



• • • • ■ 

• •• •_•••« • 

» • • • • 

■ • i • • • 



PREFACE 



DURING the height of the excursion season, eighteen 
months ago, there were assembled, one evening, in 
the lounging room of Sap Francisco's principal hotel, a 
score of travelers, each from a different distant part of the 
world. They were all engaged in the same conversation. 
This had centered on the topic of the Pacific coast's great 
opportunities in Oriental trade. The traveler whose 
authority seemed most acceptable to all the others, in 
reply to a question, said: 44 President Lincoln selected 
the site on this coast where the greatest city should be 
built. He caused it to be surveyed and laid out. The 
place is opposite Victoria, British Columbia, on the 
southern side of the great strait leading from the ocean 
to Puget sound. It is called Port Angeles. It has every 
advantage needed for the making of a metropolis. The 
harbor is the nearest in the United States to Asia, is 
immense in capacity and the most accessible on this coast 
to transcontinental railways. It is extraordinary that a 
man from Illinois should have been able to foresee the 
value of that location. No less marvelous is it that the 
same state possesses to-day the best city-building talent 
anywhere assembled in the world. The greatest muni- 
cipal accomplishment of modern times is the construction 
of the city of Chicago within about one generation. The 
next was by the same men who did that and was the 

5 



6 PREFACE 

creation of the White City at the Columbian Fair. New 
York grew. Chicago was builded. I could name twenty 
men now doing business in that city who could, if they 
would undertake to do it, make Angeles the greatest port 
in the world and one of the greatest cities. They would 
do the work in a few years, too. These Chicagoans are 
constructors, city builders, by nature. There are no 
other men in their class. " 

Asked for their names, the traveler gave them, accom- 
panying each with a brief oral sketch, and then contin- 
ued: "The city made by these builders has already the 
best press in America, the greatest book-buying com- 
munity, the most advanced school system, and the most 
democratic population. Its business men are at the same 
time the most enterprising and the most conservative ; 
its labor the most intelligent and the most reasonable; 
its bankers the most liberal and the most careful. If the 
biographies of the men who have made Chicago should 
be properly written, the literature would do more than 
all other essays to allay the growing discontent of the 
poor. These lives would perfectly exhibit the fact that 
in a country like this poverty is often the result of the 
lack of managerial talent and seldom caused by the suc- 
cess of the rich. 

"They would clearly display this other truth — that the 
prosperous American, as a rule, in his business creates 
new wealth and adds it to the stock already in existence, 
taking from it only a fair share for his labor of produc- 
tion, letting the rest go into general distribution. It 
would be valuable beyond calculation to have the unpros- 
perous convinced that the prosperous have not thrived at 
the expense of the poor; that wealth is generally obtained 



PREFACE 7 

by creative hard work of a kind few can do, and that the 
doing of this work, instead of resulting in appropriation, 
really increases distribution. Write well the story of 
Chicago's money-makers and you will help the poor." 

When one of the twelve was asked for the facts in his 
history, he replied: ik My history? There it is, in that 
row of records. They contain everything recorded about 
me. Take them. You will find the whole truth, but 
much more condemnation than commendation." 
Chicago. July, igoi. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PACE. 

I. An Illinois Pioneers Boy — The Patriotic Cousins 

Going to School — The American Temptation to 

Work 11 

II. The Water Carrier of Lemont At Might School 

ne and Law Chooses Stone IT 

III. Climbing the I Arrival at the Top — Profi- 

::cv and Integrity the Means 27 

IV. Labor Saving Inventions — Maddens Method of 

Introducing Them -Labor's Friend 

V. Contractor Careless— T take of Tolerating 

Dishonesty— Accepting Punishment \\ 

VI. The Justice of Friendship The Demands of Law — 

Friendship S 
VII. Enters 1 iblic Life— The Novice Among Aldermen 

—A Lucky Mistake 59 

VIII. Public Servict The Chicago Problem — The 

Solution Undertaken 64 

IX. 11 lie" The Cause of It— Who Use 

It T5 

X. Street Railway Franchises — The Best Solution — 

Some Examples 

XL A Great Financier — The Way Chicago was Financed 

— The Way it is X ow 

XII. Entertaining Worlds Fair Guests— A Battle for 

Morality — A Great Speech 105 

XIII. Refuses Mayoralty Three Times — Xominates Rival 

—Sacrifice for Pure Ballot 115 

XIV. Meets Unparalleled Abuse for Public Service — 

Eloquent Parliamentary Speech. 1l )( * 

XV. Starts Civil Service Reform Movement — Furnishes 

it Arguments— Many New Ideas 14t> 

9 



10 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

XVI. Passes Civil Service Reform Bill — Ignores Ingrati- 
tude — Rescues Law from Destruction 163 

XVII. Assures Chicago's Supremacy in Manufacture — 

Saves Lake Front — Creates Park There 175 

XVIII. Secures Government Help for Chicago Trade — A 

Convincing Argument. <- 186 

XIX. First Republican Manager to Declare for Gold — 

Undertakes to Get Word in Platform 192 

XX. Illinois Forces "Gold"' into St. Louis Platform — 

The Argument that Won 201 

XXI. Cook County Republicans Misrepresented — Mad- 
den's Sacrifice In Their Behalf — Marvelous Per- 
sonal Victory 210 

XXII. Uses Blaine's Reciprocity Argument — Makes Novel 

Application — Effect on Silver Men 220 

XXIII. Bryan's Nomination a Surprise — Forces Change in 

Republican Plan — The Effect 225 

XXIV. On the Stump— Many New Arguments— Their His- 

torical Value. . . 231 

XXV. Urged to Accept Senatorship from Illinois — Rea- 
sons Therefor — Necessary Votes Secured 243 

XXVI. Goes to Philadelphia Convention — Represents Illi- 
nois on Platform Committee 249 

XXVII. Writing the Republican Platform for 1900— Inserts 
the Word Isthmian — Secures Fair Play for 

France 255 

XXVIII. Saves the Republican Party from Committing a 

Blunder— A Witty Speech. 265 

XXIX. Plans the Republican Campaign for 1900— New Sil- 
ver and Expansion Argument 272 

XXX. Makes the Best Public Statement on Trusts— Pro- 
poses the Best Solution 282 

XXXI. Proposes an Effective Method of Accomplishing 

Annexation of Canada 294 

XXXII. Opposes Free Chinese Immigration — Some New and 

Convincing Arguments 299 

XXXIII. Study of a Perfect Public Servant— Essential Qual- 
ities He Must Possess 308 



CHAPTER I. 



AN ILLINOIS PIOl BOY— THE PATRIOTIC COUSINS— GOING TO 

WOOL— THE AMERICAN TEMPTATION TO WORK. 



»» ARTIX BARNABY MADDEN was born in Dar- 
/T 1 lington, England, on the 20th day of March, A. D., 
1855. His father, John Madden, was a plain man, of the 
agricultural class. His mother was Eliza O'Neil, of the 
ancient ruling family. Her father was a classical scholar 
of renown. He had been professor of Latin and Greek 
at a Dublin university, and afterwards in one of the 
schools in Paris, France. Mrs. O'Xeil Madden was a 
woman of uncommon mental gifts and strength of char- 
acter. She was domestic in taste and disposition and 
fond of learning. 

Some time before the birth of Martin, his uncle, Peter 
Warden, the husband of Mrs. Madden's sister, and a man 
of considerable importance, had moved into the northern 
part of Illinois, then the most attractive part of the 
United States for immigrants. Mr. Warden was a native 
of Pennsylvania and of Dutch-Huguenot ancestry. He 
was a well-educated man and had for a time taught 
school before moving west. He at first settled in the 
territory now Chicago, afterwards locating in Lemont, at 
present a metropolitan suburb. The Wardens prospered 
from the first. 

In Mrs. Warden's correspondence with her sister she 

11 



12 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

convinced her and her husband that the West, as minors 
was then known, was the best place in the world for the 
rearing of children possessing qualities for the creation 
of careers. 

The Maddens landed in Boston in i860, when Martin 
was four years old, and at once went to Lemont, where* 
they took up a farm. Help was scarce in the West, then, 
. and few farmers could successfully manage agricultural 
land there unless they had boys of their own able to work. 
His children being small, John Madden did not become 
affluent at farming. As both boys and girls of working 
age were more valuable as farm help than they could be 
at any other occupation among the Illinois pioneers, it 
was almost impossible to secure attendance at any but the 
primary schools. The public educational system was 
beginning to extend over the West, and when the little 
red school-house made its advent in Lemont its good 
offices, for a long time, were confined to the younger chil- 
dren. 

The Wardens, with more and larger boys, fared bet- 
ter than did the Maddens. Peter Warden became a 
citizen of influ^fece and means, and widely known. He 
was soon a leader. He was one of the men who estab- 
lished the first Baptist church organized in Chicago. Of 
this he was elected the first clerk, the most important 
and influential position a man could have in the commu- 
nity, next to that occupied by the preacher. One of his 
sons was the fourth white male child born in the city. 

Mrs. Madden and Mrs. Warden, as well as their hus- 
bands, were of patriotic texture, and became intensely 
interested in the country. The Wardens had become 
absorbed in the slavery agitation, as it had been carried 



PUBLIC SERVANT 13 

on by Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, and 
the Maddens had not long been residents of Illinois when 
they were as thoroughly American as their elder rela- 
tives who had induced them to become citizens. When 
the War of the Rebellion began, in 1861, Mrs. Warden had 
seven sons grown up. She sent six of them as soldiers 
on the Union side. To spare one son was a serious sac- 
rifice, in a country where every man was so valuable; to 
send six out of seven was heroic. These people loved 
their country. They would have given to Lincoln's 
work everything they had, without the least hesitation. 
These six sons served all through the war. John War- 
den, one of them, was one of the 200 soldiers who volun- 
teered to lead the called-for char r the ramparts of 
Vicksburg, during the Federal siege of that city. Every 
man of these 200 was wounded in that terrible task, and 
but nine returned from it alive. John was one of the 
nine. He was shot through both knees. So extraor- 
dinary was the heroism put forth by these intrepid men, 
that Congress declared a national vote of thanks to them 
and ordered a special medal to be struck, and presented 
for each. When John Warden finally, in 1893, received 
the Government's notice that his medal was awaiting him, 
the information was sent by President Cleveland. Warden 
refused to take the decoration from his hands because, 
as a soldier, he thought the President's conduct in the 
treatment of deserving pensioners was unfair and unjust. 
It was with difficulty that the soldier's cousin, then Alder- 
man, prevailed upon him to accept the nation's gift and 
treasure it for what it meant. 

At six years of age, Martin was sent to the public 
school. He attended it until he was ten. At that time 



14 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

the great value of the stone, now everywhere celebrated 
as the Athens limestone, underlying all the Lemont 
region, was beginning to attract general attention for 
building, paving and curbing purposes. Capital was 
hurried into the country for quarry development, the 
new town of Chicago's growth furnishing the demand 
and market. Labor was scarce and at a premium. 
Inducements were held out to boys to go to work in the 
quarries that were being opened up all over the neigh- 
borhood. It made Martin restive to see other lads easily 
acquiring by light work the cash that made them inde- 
pendent and important or useful in the region where 
trade had been nearly all barter, and where money had 
for a long time been so scarce that only big men could 
occasionally get any. The world was changing in his 
young eyes, and the desire to get his hand in became 
irresistible. He begged his parents to permit him to 
take advantage of the many opportunities lying all about. 
He was tall, healthy, and strong. He was, however, 
such a bright and promising scholar that both his parents 
had mapped out for him a career of learning, and he met 
with a stout resistance. The management of the chil- 
dren was in the mother's province, and the boy pointed 
out to her that the recently opened night school was 
better equipped with teachers than the one conducted 
during the day; that he could learn more at it; that what 
he would have to do if he went to work would be like 
playing for pay to a boy of his strength and activity, and 
that for this recreation he could bring into the family 
exchequer every week almost as much good hard money 
as his father would get by the barter of farming; "and 
then, mother, don't you see, I'll be earning more and 



PUBLIC SERVANT 15 

father needn't work so much." The lad attacked his 
mother on her vulnerable side. She yielded, thinking a 
boy of his age would soon change his mind, and the 
experiment would do him no harm. In fact, it might 
cure him of the craze that was afflicting all his comrades, 
and steady him in the pursuit of knowledge. The boy 
knew, what his mother did not suspect he perceived, that 
his help was really needed and would greatly aid his 
father in the support of the family. He was permitted 
to seek work, but was to submit whatever proposition he 
got, before accepting it, to his mother for her approval. 
She knew he was perfectly truthful g.nd reliable. So 
when he soon afterward reported that the Superintendent 
of the Lemont Stone Company had offered him the job 
of carrying water to the men engaged in its quarry 

rk, the mother could not at first comprehend the situ- 
ation. There was no boy so young as her son hired in 
any of the stone works; and at the Lemont there were 
many scores of men employed. How could a lad like 
Martin supply them with water? 

"It was like this," said the Superintendent. "He 
made us a proposition." 

"A proposition ! Absurd. How could a boy like that 
make you a business proposition:" Why, he is hardly ten 
years old. " 

"All the same, he did. He's more than ten up here" 
(tapping his forehead). "Says he, 'Can you give me 
something to do in the quarry?' 'And what can a little 
boy like you do in a stone quarry?' says 1. And says he, 
•Anything.' And then says he, 'What do you pay the 
men?' Tickled at that, I says, 'Two dollars a day 
each.' And he says, 'They have to go a long way to 



16 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

drink. And they all go. I've watched them. I could 
carry the water to them for less than two dollars a day.' 
Labor is scarce and we've got to pay high for it. It 
didn't take me long to figure out that what was in the 
lad's head was right. The time lost by the men going 
to and from the pumps makes up more in wages than 
the boy would save it for. So we've made a new job for 
the boy. We're going to make him water-carrier. 
There's money in it for both of us. " 

The three dollars a week offered Martin was less than 
his work would save the company in a day, and when his 
mother twitted him with not getting a larger part of the 
saving for accomplishing all of it, he said he didn't think 
the company would hire him unless they made by it, 
and, besides, any other boy could do the same thing. 
' ' Yes, ' ' laughed his mother ; * * if he would think of it. ' ' 
4 'But the company would think of it," replied 
Martin. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE WATER CARRIER UK LE MONT— AT NIGHT SCHOOL— STUDIES 
AND LAW— CHOOSES STONE. 



THE maternal consent could not now be withheld, 
and Martin Barnabv Madden began his career. 
His judgment about the night school and the nature 
of the work lie was employed to do were both correct. 
The night school had better teachers than those working 
among the day attendants, because the pupils were older 
and more capable. Among these young Madden made 
better progress in his studies than he possibly could have 
achieved in the more juvenile classes. The water-carry- 
ing for a long time was as easy as playing ball. The 
quarries grew, however, and then the business got to be 
a little more serious. Martin regarded his occupation 
alw important. The more he became acquainted 

with the quarrymen and the nature of the hard labor they 
performed for their wages, the more thought and care 
he bestowed upon his task. He never had to be called; 
he was always at his post. He never thought of saving 
himself steps by dealing out tepid drink to the hard- 
working men. He busied himself keeping cold, fresh 
water ready at all times. When the number of quarry- 
men grew to the point of taxation upon his energy, he 
established convenient stations and kept the receptacles 
at all of them full of newly-brought fresh cold beverage. 
He was for years after he had passed on from this work 
2 IT 



18 MARTiN £J. MADDEN 

referred to as the best water-carrier ever known in 
Lemont. 

A boy who did his work in that way was bound to 
attract the attention not only of the men, but of his 
employers as well. In addition to anticipating and being 
ever ready to cater to the thirst of the former, the ves- 
sels he used were not permitted to be unduly exposed, 
but were kept clean, bright and under shelter, and every 
evening carefully housed. He found time to move vari- 
ous tools, within his ability to handle, about to save the 
tired employes running after them. He made himself 
so useful in this respect, and often grouped implements 
so advantageously for emergencies, that the Superin- 
tendent one day created another new office for him, at 
increased wages — that of tool custodian. 

This was quite a rise for a boy of his age, and stimu- 
lated his pride and love for order. In his new position 
he began to display executive talent. As water-carrier 
he had become familiar with the different localities in the 
quarries. Now, he began to observe the differences in 
the trend of the stratifications and to note the variations 
in the quality of the stone. The workmen all liked him 
and answered his queries with geological information 
that never fell on barren ground. In time it was found 
that not only were the tools well kept and well disposed, 
but they were often located with considerable scientific 
insight into the nature of the anticipated work. It was 
manifest that the lad was getting interested in the work- 
ing of stone. His providence in the distribution of the 
implements, his foresight in the conduct of his task, 
became proverbial as one of the striking economies of the 
quarry. Every man engaged by the company grew 



PUBLIC SERVANT 19 

interested in the boy. The workmen saw that the higher 
he rose in the company's employ, the better their welfare 
was provided for. The overseers realized that the more 
responsible the lad was made the better the condition of 
the property and the more satisfactory the results. It 
came about, therefore, that although young Madden 
never asked a favor of anybody, but attended strictly to 
what he had to do on his own volition always, every one 
in the business was interested in pushing him up. 

He became a sort of institution in the quarry, which 
was now fast growing into a great Chicago industry. 
Fondness for the work was developing in him. He loved 
to watch the skillful extraction of the stone from the 
layers formed by nature ; to see it fashioned afterwards 
for the builders, and then follow it into the final place in 
structures. He studied nature's process and man's real- 
izations from it, and grew to regard the stone-handler's 
work as one of the noblest employments of men. From 
the dust, or the gravel, or the animal deposits, to the 
finished occupied building was, to his young mind, a 
providential arrangement all planned ages ago and now 
carried out as originally conceived. He was witnessing 
the final process of the evolution and having a small 
hand in it. It exhilarated him, made him love the work, 
and was fast attracting his whole life into it. He was 
interested during the day; when he went home explained 
it all to his listening mother and father; he thought of it 
while at his evening school; and next morning was in a 
hurry to be first at the works, solicitous not to miss any- 
thing that might transpire. As he kept at the head of 
his class his parents as yet saw no occasion to fear for his 
education. His father was proud of him, and crowded 



20 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

all the information he could pack into the inquisitive con- 
ferences the lad brought on at all the family meetings. 

At fourteen years of age, Martin was appointed time- 
keeper at the quarries. That was a phenomenal appoint- 
ment for one so young. It made him the talk of the 
whole district. To be trusted by the company to look 
after its interests in seeing that it got the receipt of all 
the time it paid for from several hundred employes, was 
a distinction no boy of that age had ever before attained 
anywhere, so far as known, in Illinois. It made the Mad- 
den lad a public character. Boys who still fished and 
hunted birds pointed to him with pride as an acquaint- 
ance, and youngsters who did not dare to claim fellow- 
ship looked upon him with awe. His employers were 
certain he would not permit them to be cheated and the 
men knew he would be fair to them. Both sides would 
take his decision any time. 

He was now earning more money in cash than his 
father's farming realized, and the question of educa- 
tion had to be settled. The parents admitted that Mar- 
tin's evening studies and his constant questionings had 
enabled him to acquire more knowledge of real value 
than they, or anyone within their acquaintance, had had 
at fourteen years of age. Of course, the son could not 
speak or write either Greek or Latin as his grandfather 
could; but he was proficient in English and in mathe- 
matics and several other branches. Then most of the 
knowledge concealed in the Greek and Roman languages 
Martin had drawn out of the scholars in the locality 
without having had to learn the scripts, and the lad said : 
44 Father, they have given it to me in better shape than 
I could have quarried it out of the original myself." 



PUBLIC SERVANT 21 

The mother's good, hard, practical sense, inherited 
from sturdy ancestors and cultivated in the severe task 
of maternal management, cropped out in the youth. He 
contended that his work was not wearying and that he 
would continue to attend night schools of higher grades, 
and depend upon his parents to keep him right in his 
reading and to help him prevent waste in pursuing his 
studies. The policy, once outlined, was carefully adhered 
to. The time-keeper added book-keeping, mechanical 
drawing, the higher mathematics and history to his 
studies, with special instructors. He rapidly became 
proficient and soon was promoted to the mechanical 
drafting corps of the company. In this body his econom- 
ical devices were so many and valuable that he rose to the 
head of the staff, and at eighteen years he was the official 
chief. He was now attending the evening sessions of 
the principal commercial college in Chicago. He grad- 
uated at the head of his class, and was made Chief Gen- 
eral Accountant and then Paymaster for the company, 
which now was employing about 900 men. 

While attending the Lemont night schools Madden's 
memory attracted general attention and became an object 
of wonder. At one time when he was in the higher 
classes he was able upon demand to give the boundaries 
of every country, state and territory in the world; to 
name the capital of every state and nation; and to locate 
every known navigable stream, its source and mouth, 
state its length, and describe it direction. He could 
remember all things equally well and never forgot any- 
thing he noticed. He never "memorized," and seemed 
absolved from all necessity of doing it. Whatever reached 
his mind in any way was retained there and ever after 



22 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

was instantly available. This prodigious faculty of 
absorbing, retaining and reproducing explains his remark- 
able progress in acquiring as well as his skill in using 
knowledge. He was very fond of debating and public 
speaking, and in both was so decidedly the superior of 
any other youth in or about Lemont as to be without 
rivalry. It was noticed that in the declaiming feats, then 
the fashion among schoolboys in northern Illinois, other 
lads were always more or less constrained in their efforts 
because of the apparent labor of their memories, while 
Madden's speech seemed spontaneous and from abun- 
dance. In after life, when he was old enough to explain 
mental operations, he attributed this difference to the 
fact that they, having committed to memory the amount 
of speech they were to deliver, when upon their feet 
were visibly engaged in the effort of adhering to their 
limits; while he, having more to say than he had time to 
utter, was really engaged in the work of extemporaneous 
selection. This difference in the mental work gave his 
orations more natural action and appearance than could 
accompany mere feats of remembrance. 

During this period it was decided by the local author- 
ities to provide increased school room for the rapidly 
enlarging classes. Plans for a new building were under 
consideration when young Madden suggested to the 
Directors that an addition to the one in use could be 
devised that would answer requirements for several years 
to come. The officials were amazed at what they thought 
was audacity on the part of the youth, and in a pleasant 
taunter replied that they would like to see a plan of such 
an addition. The boy sat down at once and in their 
presence drew what was asked, with specifications com- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 23 

plete. It was a revelation to the officials and answered 
all purposes so completely that it was at once accepted. 
The addition was constructed in strict accordance with 
the boy's draughting, and the school building so enlarged 
met the needs of that locality for a long time. The 
Directors, after accepting the plans, laughingly asked 
their author to send in a bill for ''professional services." 
He put his figure at $50. "Why, it didn't take you more 
than half an hour to make your drawings," said one of 
the Board. "But it took me many months to learn 
how," was the response. The fee was cheerfully paid 
and the incident became one of the legends of Lemont. 
The building was afterwards called "Madden's School 
House," and was pointed out to visitors as one of the 
features of the district. 

At twenty-one years of age, Madden's proficiency was 
so great that he was placed in full charge of the stone 
work on the new county building in the city of Chicago, 
all of which was furnished by the company he was work- 
ing for. The building is one of the most elaborate, 
massive and highly ornamental stone structures in the 
world, everywhere among architects regafded as a 
model. Unfortunately, it has never been completed 
according to the original design, and the ground upon 
which it is piled has proven uneven in supporting power. 
Every stone in the building was quarried under the per- 
sonal supervision of young Madden. He drafted the 
design for every one as it was to appear in the building, 
marked it for the place it was to occupy, personally 
supervised its cutting, its trial, its transportation, and its 
final setting in place, besides keeping time on the pro- 
duction of each piece, its moving and its placing. He 



24 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

remained with this work until it was completed and 
labored on an average from 6 a. m. until 9 p. m. every 
day. That was in 1876, and he had but passed his youth. 

Between his eighteenth and his twenty-second years, 
among his other studies he pursued that of law. He 
graduated from the law school and passed his examina- 
tion for admission to the bar early in the year after 
attaining his majority, being one of the twelve that got 
through the ordeal that year. He had for a long time 
been ambitious to be a lawyer. Now that he had the 
right to practice, many brilliant offers were made to him. 
He took the matter under contemplation. He now had 
many people depending upon him. His salary was $200 
per month. If he remained in the stone business he was 
assured of $3,000 a year immediately, with a prospect of 
soon getting $6,000. The best offer he could depend 
upon in the practice of law would not at once yield him 
a certainty of more than $1,500 per annum, with the 
future problematical. He decided to remain in the 
business he had been working at for twelve years and 
retain the large and valuable clientage he was certain of 
therein. 

The company for which he was now working was 
known as the Enterprise Stone Company. It had been 
evolved from several smaller concerns engaged in quarry- 
ing the Athens stone at Joliet and Lemont and employed 
over 1,000 men. The Paymaster was soon promoted to 
the office of Superintendent. In that position he got out 
of the quarries all his employers paid for and placed it in 
the market with such expedition that there was the least 
possible loss on the way. He remained Superintendent 
until 1881. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 25 

On the 16th of May, 1878, two months after passing 
the twenty-third anniversary of his birth, Martin B. 
Madden took the most important step of a good man's 
life: he married. The union was one of perfect natural 
selection, the result of a long acquaintance. The bride 
was Miss Josephine Smart, of Downer's Grove, Du Page 
county, Illinois. Her grandparents on both sides had 
emigrated from England to New York when her father, 
Elijah Smart, was six years of age and her mother, Eliza 
Fell, six months. When Elijah Smart married he and 
his young wife started wes They journeyed in a 

wagon all the way from Cattaraugus county, N. Y. , 
where they were reared, to Illinois and located at Down- 
er's Grove. Here their daughter Josephine was born. 
At an early age she exhibited literary and musical talent 
of a high order, and her parents had her carefully edu- 
cated. She attended Wheaton College and then pursued 
and finished her studies at Northwestern University. At 
the time of her marriage Miss Smart, because of her 
accomplishments and graces of person, was one of the 
greatest social favorites in northern Illinois. She had 
no superior among her sex in the entire West in either 
musical skill or developed talent in literary composition, 
prose and poetical. She might easily have reached any 
place before the public within a woman's ambition. 
Love of home, however, predominated in her disposition. 
After marriage she devoted her all talents to the woman's 
side of family and domestic life, and so became abso- 
lutely the partner of her husband. Heaven has entrusted 
these two with a daughter, now in her fifteenth year. 

A short time after Mr. Madden 's marriage some 
neighbors were discussing with his mother the departure 



26 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

of her son from home and the probabilities of his career. 
His history was recounted and compared with that of 
many men then prominent in affairs, and the conviction 
was expressed that he would be " heard from." It was 
this conversation that drew from Mrs. Madden the remark- 
able statement so often quoted : 

"I have raised a son who will not lie, nor take any- 
thing that does not belong to him, nor own anything that 
he has not paid for in full. He will not say anything 
against his neighbor, even if that neighbor be his enemy. 
He will not go into debt for himself. He will live on 
less than he earns and ever have money on hand to help 
himself and his friends along. He will all his days do 
for his employers more than he may be paid to do. He 
has a fine mind, a good tongue and a clean soul, and he 
will keep them that way as long as he lives, I know. He 
cannot easily be deceived, can take care of himself, and 
will never deserve any shame. He will rise from the 
time he left home and will not fall until he dies, and he 
will always stand up tall and straight among his fellow 
men. I am satisfied altogether with him and proud of 
what I have done in rearing him. The greatest states- 
man can do no more for the country than I have done in 
giving Martin to it — God bless them both." 



CHAPTER III. 



CLIMBING THE LADDER— ARRIVAL AT THE TOP— PROFICIENCY AND 
INTEGRITY THE M-EANS. 



IN 1881 all the companies quarrying the Athens stone 
formed a central organization known as the Chicago 
Building Stone Company. Of this Mr. Madden was made 
the Financial Manager. This association did the market- 
ing and collecting for all the companies producing the 
stone. The Manager handled the sales and collections 
with consummate skill and great profit for one year. 
The hard indoor work he did not like and he resigned at 
the end of a year, for the purpose of going back to out- 
door life. 

He had bought an interest in the Joliet Stone Com- 
pany and in the Crescent Stone Company of Joliet, and 
was made Vice-President and General Manager of both. 
He reorganized the concerns, making the Joliet the 
handler and the Crescent the producer. In the first year 
of his management he netted the stockholders $60,000 
in profits. He conducted the business of both companies 
from that time until 1891 each year paying large divi- 
dends. 

So thorough was now his knowledge of the quarry- 
ing, handling, transportation and marketing of building, 
paving and curbing stone, and so comprehensive his 
acquaintance with the building trade in all parts of the 

27 



28 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

country, that he was everywhere sought for his mana- 
gerial ability and talent for making money in the stone 
and construction business. 

The Quarry Owners' Association, owning stone lands 
between New York and Denver, elected him President 
for two successive terms of two years each. He was the 
youngest man who had ever held that responsible office, 
and the only one ever elected twice to it. He declined 
the third election offered to him because he could no 
longer spare the time to properly attend to the business 
of the office. 

He was for two years Vice-President of the Builders' 
and Traders' Exchange of Chicago, and was on its direc- 
tory during that time as Chairman of the Finance Com- 
mittee. 

He represented the builders of Illinois as delegate to 
the National Convention of Builders at St. Paul in 1890; 
New York in 1891; Cleveland in 1892, and St. Louis in 
1893. 

In 1 89 1 the Western Stone Company, a powerful and 
rich corporation, composed of a number of the wealthiest 
business men in Chicago, which had absorbed all the 
companies quarrying and handling the Athens limestone, 
except the Joliet and Crescent, offered Mr. Madden the 
general management of the corporation at any salary he 
might choose to ask. He refused the offer, on the 
ground that he was responsible for the financial manage- 
ment of the two independent companies, and that his 
partners were not practical stone men. He was pressed 
to accept the offer, but positively refused, as he said, to 
leave his inexperienced stockholders in the lurch. Then 
the Western Stone Company offered to buy out his 



PUBLIC SERVANT 29 

interest in the two concerns, if he would accept the man- 
agement offered. He declined to sell. After that it 
offered to buy all the stock of both the Joliet and Cres- 
cent. To this Mr. Madden replied he would say nothing 
until he had consulted his partners. He placed the prop- 
osition before them. They were a good deal surprised at 
the loyalty of their Manager. The acceptance of the 
corporation's offer would have placed him at the very 
head of the stone business in the United States, with 
unlimited capital for operation. That was a most envia- 
ble position for any man, especially for one scarce thirty- 
five years of age. They asked him for a frank statement 
of his desire in the affair as well as of the advice he 
thought best. He did not hesitate to admit that the 
proposal was agreeable to him and in the line of his com- 
mercial ambition; nor did he conceal his conviction that 
the salary proffered was much greater than the business 
of his partners would enable them to pay him. He 
thought the best solution would lie in a sale of the Joliet 
and Crescent, if that could be effected on satisfactory 
terms. Then, he said, their investment would remain in 
his management under more advantageous conditions. 
If they took cash for their stock, it might be difficult to 
invest it as well as it was already placed, but if they 
managed to have it merged in the larger company it 
might yield still greater dividends. However, if his 
partners concluded to hold on to their independent busi- 
ness, he would stay with them. 

They quickly agreed to sell, proposing an attempt to 
merge. They put the price of all the stock in both their 
companies at the high figure of $350,000, but empowered 
Madden to make the best disposition of it he could. He 



30 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

at once saw the powers of the Western Stone Company, 
and within half an hour sold to them the stock of the 
Joliet and Crescent for $300,000 in the shares of the 
corporation, a far better deal than for $350,000 cash. 
The contract of sale included his employment as Vice- 
President and Manager of the Western Stone Company. 

This concern now had the sole quarrying and sale of 
all the Athens limestone known to be available in the 
neighborhood of Chicago. As Vice-President and Man- 
ager, Madden at once set about the task of increasing the 
business of his employers. He introduced labor-saving 
devices to improve the efficiency of the company's labor. 
This was for the purpose of decreasing the cost of pro- 
duction and increasing the sales by broadening the 
market for all forms of the stone. 

It was not long before the President of the company 
became aware that much new business was being secured 
and transacted that he had no hand in. He misunder- 
stood the duties of his office and supposed that he was to 
be consulted about every detail. He soon adopted the 
policy of interference, and carried it so far as to prohibit 
the initiation of any new method in the management of 
the corporation's varied operations until he had been 
consulted. As he was a very rich man, engaged in many 
other enterprises and seldom about the premises of the 
Western Stone Company, his attitude, if acquiesced in, 
would leave the Manager idle a great part of the time. 
The result would be a loss of orders and a diversion of 
much trade the company might secure. To a man of 
Madden's energy and practical knowledge this was fool- 
ish as well as exasperating. He at once hunted up his 
superior to bring matters to an issue. The Manager 



PUBLIC SERVANT 31 

claimed that it was his province to run the business, 
make sales, attend to the collections, and earn the divi- 
dends, under whatever policy the Board of Directors 
should adopt, and that the President's duty was confined 
to seeing that the policy was adhered to. As long as the 
Manager, who was always present, correctly adhered to 
the outlined policy, the matter of details was altogether 
one of management, he alone being responsible for 
results and employed to accomplish them. The situation 
was delicate. The President was Chairman of the Board 
of Directors at the time, and felt that he was called upon 
to manage as well as direct. The directors were all 
rich, prominent and powerful men, and, without looking 
closely into the merits of the question, seemed to indorse 
the President's view. The latter was really unable to 
give sufficient time to become well acquainted with all 
the circumstances necessary to keep in view for the 
proper carrying on of such an immense business. His 
attitude was one of obstruction, dangerous to the stock- 
holders' interests, and likely to produce successful com- 
petition. One day he carried much indignation into the 
office of the Manager and criticised him severely for 
arousing the animosity of outside competitors. t4 Why, " 
said the President, l4 with your mechanical appliances you 
are reducing the price of stone to such a point that your 
undersales are provoking criticism. The men in the 
trade all over the country are sending in complaints to 
the board all the time. This thing must be stopped, or 
the company will not have a friend left in the trade." 

It seemed useless to argue with a powerful man labor-, 
ing under such a trade misconception. The Manager, 
however, felt sure of his ground, and pointed out the 



32 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

danger of allowing competitors to regulate the policy of 
the company. He maintained that the only way to carry 
on the business was to increase the sales as much as pos- 
sible in every legitimate way. The best way of all was 
to reduce the prices of stone to the lowest point attaina- 
ble, by every scheme available, to attract, enlarge and 
retain trade, letting competitors look out for themselves. 
To protect them by refusing to adopt economical devices 
and methods was to share with them business that prop- 
erly belonged to the corporation's own stockholders. 
The President was obdurate. He even went so far as to 
appoint a sort of superintendent to take his own place 
during necessary absence and to assist the. Manager in 
retarding the business. 

Mr. Madden declined to permit the new appointee to 
have anything to do with the management of the busi- 
ness, even to draw a salary. His own pay was a matter 
of contract, as was his position. He then assembled the 
many stockholders who had invested their money in the 
company's shares on the strength of his management, 
explained the situation to them, and asked to be relieved 
of responsibility for the care of their investments. He 
urged the abolition of his office because its duties were 
so usurped by the President that there was no field for 
vice-presidential work. There was a general demurrer to 
this and a clearing of the atmosphere. He was asked 
to take the presidency. This he positively refused to do. 
He preferred the management if it could be freed from 
unnecessary interference so that he would be able to 
develop trade and earn dividends. The consultation 
resulted in his retention of his office and a modified inter- 
ference. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 33 

The effects of the panic of 1893 were becoming more 
widespread and a general stoppage of building and public 
improvements was going on. The division of power and 
maladjustment of duties in the management tended still 
to impede the seeking of trade and the earning of income, 
and in 1894 the corporation's business reached the point 
of serious loss. That brought the stockholders and direc- 
tors to the whole truth. They lost no time in reorganiz- 
ing the entire management. They made the presidency 
the managerial office of the concern and elected Mr. 
Madden to the place. He accepted and was installed on 
the 16th of January, 1895. 

The water-carrier of Lemont, after footing every 
round of the ladder, was now at the very top. The new 
President had gone through every experience in the 
stone trade. He was the most thoroughly experienced 
and enlightened man in the business in the entire coun- 
try, and had the widest knowledge of the building 
industry. It had taken him thirty long years of hard toil 
to gain his mental equipment. He was asked to take the 
supreme control of the largest and most completely 
organized concern for the quarrying, handling and 
marketing of building stone in the world; to earn divi- 
dends on the immense property and to do it in the period 
of the greatest depression ever known to the trade. He 
took hold of his task with as much confidence as he dis- 
played when he carried his first bucket of water. He 
had a capital of $2,500,000. The stockholders were all 
rich and able, as well as willing, to put up all the assess- 
ments that might be needed. There were 50 boats and 
500 teams of horses at the yards; 2,700 men were at 
work. There was a deficit in the past year's accounts of 



34 MARTIN B. MADDEN 



d,ooo and a debt of $158,000, He at once increased 
the expenditures $108,000 to improve the equipment. 
He cut off 400 useless salaries. He reduced the cost of 
quarrying, cutting and transporting the output 33 1-3 per 
cent. He put down prices and enlarged the demand. 
He sold 12,000 carloads of cut stone in outside markets 
that year, besides hundreds of boat-loads in Chicago. 
From the very first day of his term he increased the 
receipts so that he was enabled to make money by 
advancing cash on outstanding current debts and in this 
way discounted every bill against the house during the 
year. When he gave account at the end of twelve 
months to his employers, he turned over clear receipts 
for the debts, 4 per cent, net on every dollar of the stock, 
and a business larger and more profitable than the 
investors had ever before had for their money. 



CHAPTER TV. 



LABOR SAVING INVENTIONS— MADDEN S METHOD OF INTRODUCING 
THEM— LABOR'S FRIEND. 



THE principal difficulty experienced in the manage- 
ment of the large number of skilled laborers it was 
necessary to keep employed in the development of the 
Lemont and Joliet stone quarries was in the introduction 
of machinery. The men were getting high wages, labor 
was scarce, the workers realized the value of the monopoly 
they had, and they were jealous and watchful of their 
own interests. Much of the time the demand for stone 
kept ahead of the supply. A strike at any period was 
calamitous for the companies. To attempt to increase 
the output by the introduction of machinery was gener- 
ally perilous. It could under few circumstances be 
brought in without the consent of the men. They had 
been taught by their leaders that labor-saving machines 
were rivals to human hands, and their attitude was 
usually one of opposition. The task of meeting the diffi- 
culty was always imposed on Madden. In him the men 
had confidence. They had seen him labor like them- 
selves. He had always been their friend. His sym- 
pathies were, as a rule, with them in their differences 
with the employers. He had risen in their sight by pure 
merit. Every accession of power that had come to him 
had been earned; not one had been sought, schemed for, 

85 



36 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

or secured by any kind of outside aid. The more powerful 
he grew the better their interests were cared for. What- 
ever he had to say was listened to. 

Madden himself devised most of the mechanical con- 
trivances put into the quarries. From the time he fin- 
ished his studies in mechanical drawing and civil engin- 
eering it had been his idea that the business of handling 
stone should be gradually transformed until it became 
like that of handling lumber. Instead of blasting out 
unshaped masses and putting them on the market as they 
came from the quarries, they should be shorn of waste, 
he thought, and put into form where taken out. That 
would at the beginning lessen prices by cutting off trans- 
portation charges on useless material. The decrease in 
price thus obtained would enlarge the demand and 
increase the quarrying. 

The men easily saw that, and there was not much 
trouble in bringing about a combination of cutting and 
blasting at the works. They rather liked the increase of 
the laboring population brought about by the combina- 
tion. It raised the value of lots and the circulation of 
money in the neighborhood, and made business thrive. 

Then the number of forms was increased. This went 
on until Madden had succeeded in getting into stock 
shapes all sizes of steps, balustrades, newel posts, door 
and window sills and tops, door and window 7 side uprights, 
hearth-stones and chimney cappings, in addition to the 
old stock forms of flagging, paving and curbing blocks. 
Each new form added to the old jobbing stock was the 
result of much investigation of the possibilities of the 
building market, as it had to be put into competition 
with lumber stocks. But Madden thought that stone 



PUBLIC SERVANT 37 

might with advantage be worked into the market as a 
competitor of the inflammable and perishable material. 
When he had succeeded in finding sale for all the shapes 
in which stone might take the place of wood in the staple 
parts of building material, the problem became one of 
holding and enlarging the market. That brought it 
down to the question of cost of production solely. The 
cutters saw this. The quarry men were, of course, with 
Madden in his efforts to increase the sales of the finished 
stone. So were the cutters, if it augmented their earn- 
ings or added to their number without cutting down 
wages. But it was not easy to get more masons. The 
subject of new machinery had, therefore, to be met. 

Madden devised a number of machines for drilling, 
sawing, planing, squaring, roughing and otherwise 
masoning the stone. He proposed their introduction one 
by one, demonstrating in each case that the appliance, 
having to be operated by a skilled mason, lessened his 
work by throwing most of the hard part of it on the 
machine. It, therefore, increased the man's efficiency 
and lightened his toil. In the next place, it enabled 
each man to greatly increase his day's output. If the 
market did not increase, this, of course, would enable 
the company to supply it with less masons. On the 
other hand, the vastly enlarged manufacture at practi- 
cally no increased cost, because the machines would 
become part of the plant, would enable the company to 
reduce prices so as to sell all the present number of 
masons employed could turn out. If the lessened prices 
could be got down to the point where stone would be 
preferable to wood, then the demand for stone would be 
so enlarged that it would require more masons to supply 



38 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

it In that case the machines would not only make the 
work of the masons easier, but would enlarge the num- 
ber employed, and might even result in higher wages for 
less actual hard work. No reasonable cutter would strike 
against an experiment with such an end in view. 

By such consideration of the feelings of the men, and 
through demonstrations all looking to their interest, 
Madden succeeded in gradually introducing every one of 
his many inventions. In every case, without an excep- 
tion, his theories, as he placed them before the men, 
worked out better than he had ever intimated they 
would. He had always made it a rule in his dealings 
with his men to tell them the truth; to never dissimulate 
or equivocate at all; and to always theorize or promise 
moderately and as far as possible within the mark. The 
quarrymen and masons were accustomed to seeing his 
word result better than his pledge. As one after another 
of his labor-saving devices came into use, the company's 
business grew until the total historical result was that 
the quarries quintupled the number of their employes 
and wages all around were exactly trebled. The 
machines had enabled the management to reduce the 
wholesale prices of the principal staple forms of stone 
from 52 to 16 cents a piece; from 87 to 35 cents a piece; 
from $1.50 to 50 cents a piece; and of all other shapes 
proportionately. The market as a result was enormously 
and permanently enlarged and the stockholders profited 
as well as the men. 

It is a fact that to-day (July, 1900) the men employed 
by the companies under Mr. Madden's management are 
the best paid stone workers in America, and their work 
is lightened by most efficient mechanical appliances. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 39 

The lowest form of labor engaged in any of his quarries 
receives 25 cents a day more than the same class of work 
gets anywhere else in the world. He has always been 
the workingman's friend. His sympathies are naturally 
with the poor. He understands poverty and realizes how 
much of it is due altogether to fortune. As a business 
man he knows that the best labor is the happiest; the 
happiest the best paid. His studies in political economy 
have shown him that the two interests in this world that 
need wages — that cannot subsist without them — capital 
and labor, are necessarily partners in the firm of Produc- 
tion; that labor will best enable capital to get its wages, 
interest, when capital best helps labor to get its pay, 
wages. Where he lives, in the community where his 
entire laborious, useful life has been spent, since his youth 
in public, responsible capacities, he is recognized by all 
as the fairest man to the interests of both capital and 
labor. The recognition of his position in this respect is 
so general and so undisputed that in most cases of dis- 
pute he is solicited by both sides to act as arbiter. And 
such is the confidence in his intelligence and uprightness 
that w r hen controversies are placed with him for decision, 
in all cases wherein he can incline to neither side, both 
retreat from their contention and leave the adjustment to 
his individual creation. 

While conducting the large and complicated business 
of the Western Stone Company, Mr. Madden also acted 
as Treasurer of the Legnard-Madden Brick Company, 
Treasurer of the Cable Building and Loan Association, 
Director of the Garden City Banking & Trust Company, 
Director of the Commercial and Loan Company, and 
Trustee of the State Reformatories. 



40 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

He was selected by Governor Altgeld for the latter 
office because of the financial talent needed in the man- 
agement of the new building at Pontiac, which was to 
cost $500,000 and be capable of properly housing 1,500 
inmates. 

As bank and building and loan association director, 
Mr. Madden solved the problem of eliminating the evil 
of one-man power from the institutions with which he 
was connected — the evil that invariably results in the 
financial destruction of every fiscal enterprise in which it 
is permitted to hold sway. In the banking business he 
insisted on having the President confined in his work to 
carrying out the instructions of the directors and on hav- 
ing them consider, decide and order every action involv- 
ing the responsible use of the funds. To prevent abuse 
of power on the one hand and neglect on the other in the 
management of association business, necessarily left 
largely in the hands of the one official under salary and 
always on duty, Mr. Madden conceived and had put into 
practice the plan of limiting the expenses to such a per- 
centage on the money authorized by the directory to be 
loaned as would make it to the interest of the Manager 
to keep that sum out and at the same time prevent finan- 
cial abuses. 



CHAPTER V. 



CONTRACTOR CARELESS— THE MISTAKE OF TOLERATING 
Y— ACCEPTING PUNISHMENT. 



IX any large business wherein the policy is formed and 
controlled by a board of directors and carried out by 
the executive head of the concern, while he necessarily 
has a lar^ r e discretion it must often happen that his 
actions will be hampered or assisted by the unofficial con- 
duct of the members. It is difficult indeed to obtain a 
perfect business manager. He must be a man who 
thoroughly understands the business he is trusted to 
conduct, v d be depended upon to get out of it all 

the results hi- holders are entitled to obtain, and 

who at the same time possesses, and will exercise, the 
tact to inspire all his employers to let him have his own 
way entirely. Mr. Madden 's experience and his knowl- 
edge of himself made him self-reliant. He was willing 
to be advised and always invited counsel, but early in his 
business career he had discovered that he was far more 
apt than most of his commercial associates to go to the 
bottom of things before taking action. He, therefore, 
depended not only on his own judgment but upon his 
impressions of men, particularly those formed of a man 
acting off guard. 

A well-known and large dealing contractor called one 
day at the offices of the Western Stone Companv to enquire 

41 



42 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

about the prices of many sizes of building stone. He 
presented good references and established sufficient 
credit for the transaction on hand, and after more or less 
bargaining placed a large order for material. Mr. Mad- 
den, in issuing instructions for its delivery, cautioned 
the executive clerks to conduct the details of all dealings 
with this man with especial care. The contractor had 
made so good an impression by his personal appearance, 
manner, and general way of carrying on his part of the 
negotiation, that the caution attracted much attention. 
One of the officers of the company asked why this cus- 
tomer had been singled out for special remark. "Be- 
cause," replied Madden, "he is handling other people's 
money and is not careful enough to get full value for all 
he pays out. ' ' 

"Why, he is one of the easiest men to deal with that 
ever came here for material,' ' was rejoined; "he didn't 
haggle at all. We got through with him in no time." 

"That's just it. Whenever a man who is spending 
funds entrusted to him is not particular enough to haggle 
for all he can get for the money, he is not as honest as a 
man should be. This man did not push matters here at 
all; if he had been diligent he might have made a much 
better bargain. Why should we not watch him when 
he himself places right before us evidence of his unreli- 
ability?" 

The contractor continued his patronage and it was 
valuable. He always paid his bills promptly and became 
such a favorite in the office that he received especial con- 
sideration each time he came. In most of his dealings, 
however, there was some little looseness. He would fail 
sometimes to insist on getting certain pieces of stone 



PUBLIC SERVANT 43 

due, or carelessly approve accounts superficial examina- 
tion would have shown to be incorrectly tallied against 
him. The office was continually finding out and correct- 
ing these errors on its own initiative. The head clerks 
used these incidents as arguments in favor of the cus- 
tomer. "You see," they would say, "he has absolute 
confidence in the company; he knows it will not see 
him cheated; it all shows what a good reputation we 
have." 

M On the contrary," the General Manager would reply, 
"it shows that the company is constantly making gifts 
to the man to save his backers from the losses his own 
infidelity to their trust would otherwise cause them. We, 
of course, do not want and would not keep anything he 
pays for; but no man is altogether square who does not 
get all that others trust him to buy after he pays their 
money for it. Such a man is either intentionally or 
unintentionally not quite honest. He should be watched, 
for often such lapses as this man is continually making 
here are intentional. When they are, he will record them 
all in his memory as an investment against this house, 
and in his own good time he will attempt to realize upon 
them by some assumption or demand which he will cal- 
culate we cannot then very well refuse. It is my order 
that his account be scrupulously kept and that extra care 
be taken that no debit shall arise against us through any 
lapse of his." 

Some of the executive clerks attributed this to preju- 
dice, but Mr. Madden was sure he entertained no preju- 
dice except what the customer's methods would naturally 
arouse in any conscientious business man. The con- 
tractor's personality was so engaging that it would be dif- 



44 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ficult not to like him. His way of doing business was 
alone objectionable. 

Matters went along in this way for about five years, 
during which the business relations between the company 
and the contractor continued as above described. The 
General Manager had about concluded to allow the senti- 
ment of the office to control his judgment in its dealings 
with Mr. Careless,, and to keep the prejudice he could 
not stifle all to himself. 

About this time the city was hurrying up the work 
of track elevation within the corporate limits. An 
important section of work, which would cost $1,000,000 
to accomplish, was about to be let, and Mr. Careless was 
anxious to secure it. On one of his business visits to 
the offices of the Western Stone Company, he disclosed 
his desire to Mr. Madden and asked him for a personal 
letter of introduction to the President of the company 
that would let the $1,000,000 job. This gentleman and 
Mr. Madden were close friends, but Careless gave no 
indication that he was aware of that. The request was 
a fair one under all the circumstances — it was for a mere 
letter of introduction from one business man to another 
for a customer who had largely patronized the one and 
wished to make a proposal to the other. As President 
of the stone company, Mr. Madden wrote the letter. 
In it he simply affirmed that he had known the bearer 
in a business way for about five years; that he was a con- 
tractor who understood his business; that he had pur- 
chased a great deal of material from the Western Stone 
Company during the period mentioned, and had always 
paid the bills for it promptly. 

A few days after giving this letter Mr. Madden was 



PUBLIC SERVANT 45 

tailed to the long* distance telephone by some one 6co 
miles away who wished to speak to him on an important 
matter. It was the President. li Madden, your friend, 
Careless, has presented your letter of 'recommendation to me 
along with a bid for that $i,coo,ooo contract. We want 
to give it to him on your account, but his bid is altogether 
too high. We have told him to reduce it, and that then 
we'll give him the job. He needn't make his figures the 
lowest, with the testimonials he has.'' 

The President was acquainted with Madden's habit of 
conservatism in business correspondence and had without 
any study extended the meaning of the letter. There 
was no man in the city the company would rather have 
interested in the construction work on than the 

President of the Western Stone Company. 

Contractor Careless, it is needless to say, obtained the 
contract. When the award had been made he called 
upon Mr. Madden and asked him to become bondsman 
for fulfillment of the contract. While holding this 
request under consideration he received over the 'phone, 
from the letting company's office, a request that he 
endorse the contract as bondsman, since the Western 
Stone Company was furnishing all the cut stone used by 
the different contractors in the work going on, the let- 
ting companies obligating themselves to see that the 
tern would be paid. To this message there was 
nothing to answer except assent. 

At this time Mr. Madden had completed preparations 
for taking a holiday trip to Europe with his wife, and 
was on the point of departure. He found that the con- 
tractor had secured as his other bondsman an intimate 
wealthy business friend of Mr. Madden. Hastily con- 



46 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ferring with him it was agreed that before endorsing 
the contract it should be arranged that the bondsmen 
should have the selection of a mutual friend to superin- 
tend the work done under it, for their protection, the 
choice to be left to Mr. Madden's colleague. 

The bond required placed the signers under a $50,000 
obligation to see that the work was done according to 
the specifications and that all bills should be paid as they 
fell due during the progress of the work. Just as Mr. 
Madden was about to board his train on the way to enjoy 
his vacation his secretary overtook him with the com- 
pleted papers in the case and obtained his signature. 

Work under the contract was commenced at once, 
with the superintendent chosen by the other bondsman 
in charge as overseer. 

Mr. Madden remained away altogether seven weeks. 
When he reached the quarantine station at New York 
on his return, he received by special delivery a telegram 
from Chicago, marked "Rush." "Important." It 
stated that everything had gone wrong in the contract 
enterprise, and asked him to wait at the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel until his fellow-bondsman should arrive, stating 
that he would take the first train after being apprised of 
the acceptance of the appointment, and urged a "rush" 
answer. The whole situation disclosed itself, and a reply 
was telegraphed to call Madden up by telephone at the 
Hotel at two o'clock next afternoon. It was night, the 
ship would have to lie at quarantine until sunrise, and 
could hardly land its passengers in time to keep appoint- 
ments in the city much before that hour. The vessel was 
fortunate in getting through next day earlier than had 
been calculated and Mr. Madden lost no time in calling 



PUBLIC SERVANT 47 

up his own office in Chicago by telephone and learning 
the whole story of the trouble. Thus equipped he met 
his partner at the wire at two o'clock and then got his 
tale. It didn't differ much from the one already received, 
but it contained the statement that the bondsman had 
already been compelled to pay out over $70,000 in 
cash, besides assuming unknown amounts of liability, 
and that things would have been much worse but for the 
diligence of the superintendent. Madden said he would 
take the first through train home; it would pass Elkhart, 
Ind. , at a certain hour; if the overseer would board the 
train there with a full written statement of the accounts 
and able to give complete explanations, a plan of action 
might be devised by the time Chicago was reached. At 
the Indiana town the overseer boarded the cars and 
Madden and he were soon engaged in sifting the case. 
It required but a short time and but little questioning 
to convince Mr. Madden that his informant was either at 
sea on the facts, or was in collusion with the contractor 
and was attempting to deceive him, as he felt he had 
probably fooled the other bondsni His repeated 

efforts to secure the contractor's dismissal and his boast- 
ings of how he had worked night and day to prevent 
matters from becoming worse then they were suggested 
in some way dishonesty. Towards him an inquisitive 
but non-committal policy was maintained the remainder 
of the journey. Soon after the train left Elkhart a tele- 
gram was received asking for a meeting at nine o'clock 
that night in Chicago. As the train was not due until 
that hour, it was evident that the waiting partner was in 
an excited frame of mind and that the condition of the 



48 MARTIN. B. MADDEN 

business was growing worse. An appointment was tele- 
graphed for the next morning. 

As soon as the city was reached Mr. Madden saw his 
wife home and spent the night getting the real facts. 
When these were in hand it was apparent that unques- 
tionable control of the case would have to be obtained 
and that a large amount of cash would be needed early 
in the morning. The times were hard and money was 
difficult to raise even under the most favorable circum- 
stances. Nevertheless, it was got. 

The partners met next morning, the one naturally 
feverish, but the other steady and fixed for action. 
41 We've been robbed!" exclaimed the one. "I've already 
been obliged to put up $70,000 in cash, in these times 
when money is the hardest thing in the world to get. 
I've had to stand pat on the contract and assume all 
kinds of liability. There are 1,800 men at work. I have 
had to pay all their wages now for seven weeks, and 
there's no way of letting them go. I'm nearly distracted 
over the whole business. And here you are as placid as 
if nothing at all had happened. Are you not worried 
over this thing?" 

"No, it's too serious for worrying or being nervous. 
We need our energies for work. That is the only thing 
that will save us both from far more serious cause for 
worry." 

"Well, but what are you going to do; what can you 
do?" 

"The first thing I am going to do is to pay you back 
the money you have lost and the money you have paid 
out on my account. You have, I find, paid out, under 
the demands of the contract we endorsed, $70,000 in 



PUBLIC SERVANT 49 

wages. Half of that I am responsible for; the other half 
you are. But you would not have risked this responsi- 
bility except for my partnership. There's $35,000 in 
cash. It makes you whole for your half of the loss. The 
other half, which you have voluntarily advanced for me, 
I will make good to you. That will leave you without 
any loss on the contract and just where you started. 
Now we can talk business." 

The atmosphere being now cleared and calm, Mr. 
Madden told his partner this: the overseer was worse 
than the contractor. The contract had simply been 
worked as a means of securing business in other direc- 
tions. Politicians with influence in the letting of con- 
tracts had been supplied with guarantees of votes by put- 
ting their workers on the pay-roll with nothing to do but 
district organizing. There were hundreds of such 
already on the contractor's books, not one of whom had 
lifted a shovel. It was the excess of cash expenditure on 
this wage account over the amount of actual construction 
done and collected for, that had been dunned out of the 
bondsman. The conspiracy was unquestionably the 
device mainly of the overseer. The contractor might 
calculate on getting other jobs for this political help, but 
the real conspirator was the superintendent. He was 
worse than the other man and must be dismissed at 
once. 

Next the whole work of construction must be shut 
down to end expense, and not be resumed until the 
whole business was purged. 

To the dismissal of his own appointee the bondsman 
reluctantly consented but he jumped at the general 
proposition. 



50 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

The two then agreed to send for a lawyer. When he 
came, Mr. Madden explained the affair to him and said 
that he had decided to secure the assignment of the 
entire contract over to the bondsmen, with all monies 
due and owing, and a bill of sale for all materials on 
hand and arranged for, tools and everything. The law- 
yer saw great difficulty in compelling any man to assign 
such a valuable contract. "Tell Careless," said Mad- 
den, "that if he refuses to assign we will go to law for 
relief as bondsmen and allege as grounds all we know ; if 
he consents, we will retain him to carry on the work as 
long as he does so to our satisfaction. ' ' The attorney 
put his great skill at once to work and procured the 
assignment, taking care to make the employment clause 
in the consideration optional with his clients as to con- 
tinuance. When the assignment had been secured, 
"What are you going to do with the contract now that 
you have it?" Mr. Madden was asked. "Sub-let it?" 
To everybody's amazement he answered: "Operate it 
myself. Til take charge of the work." 

He did. He had reached Chicago on September 5th. 
It had taken him two days to complete his investigation, 
pay his partner, get rid of the overseer, obtain the assign- 
ment and hire Careless. He began work on September 
7th. He found 1,800 men on the pay roll. He was sat- 
isfied 800 were all he needed. Selecting that number of 
the most efficient, he dismissed the rest. When Careless 
began again, as he soon did, to pad the pay rolls, Madden 
discharged him and put in his place an expert of his 
own selection. It was not long before Careless began to 
make demands under legal advice for various rights 
claimed under the original contract or through the alleged 



PUBLIC SERVANT 51 

invalidity of the assignment. Madden treated these as 
attempts at blackmail and to make his way clearer had 
the letting company make a new contract with him and 
his fellow-bondsman direct. 

The work was suspended for a while in November. 
At that time stock was taken. Madden had recouped 
the whole $70,000 originally lost and had $S,ooo net 
profit besides. 

When work was resumed, all sorts of schemes were 
devised to beat the new invaders in the contracting field. 
Superintendents from the concern letting the work con- 
stantly interfered with it, demanding all sorts of changes 
in the specifications. Every reasonable change was 
assented to but charged up. They amounted to more 
than $60,000 in the additional expense of carrying on the 
construction, and the company was so struck with the 
reasonableness of the demand for compensation for the 
changes that it ordered the amount added to the contract 
bill. 

The work was finished in the following November, 
and was so carried on that it was not allowed to interfere 
in any way with Mr. Madden 's care of any other of his 
numerous business duties. When he closed the books he 
divided $60,000 net profit with his partner bondsman, 
in addition to the previous $70,000 that had canceled 
their early loss. 

"There/ 1 said he, "ends the punishment for not 
adhering to a first well-founded impression." 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE JUSTICE OF FRIENDSHIP — THE DEMANDS OF LAW — FRIEND- 
SHIP SAVES. 



THE demands of legal justice are often unjust. They 
sometimes deprive the world of the services of 
good men. To properly thwart the unfair claims of the 
law calls for the action of a person who must himself be 
beyond suspicion and good indeed. Business men are 
sometimes called upon to face much unsound criticism 
because a correct sense of right impels them to withstand 
popular clamor in cases wherein the public, even with all 
the facts, is incapable of true insight into the actual 
merits of the happening. 

For its own protection the Western Stone Company 
adopted a plan of closing its books on the last day of 
each month. No matter what the amount of business 
done the arrangement required the balancing of accounts 
by midnight on the last day of each lunar division. 

At eleven o'clock on such a night one of the young 
men in the office had not yet reported for duty after the 
evening meal. He must be ill, it was thought, as it was 
the first time during the twelve long years of his faithful 
service such an absence had occurred, and he was well 
aware the staff was overtaxed. The books were all sat- 
isfactorily closed by extra work without his aid. Next 
morning he continued absent. Everybody in the estab- 
lishment grew concerned and the books were opened 

52 



PUBLIC SERVANT 53 

anew without his presence. When noon arrived without 
him, anxiety gave way to dread, and a special messenger 
was dispatched to his boarding house to learn the nature 
of the malady. He was not there. He had gone away 
the night before in as good health as he ever had. No 
explanation was left by him; he had simply disappeared. 
He had been with the company over half his life and 
had risen from one clerkship to another until he had 
become cashier, entirely trusted with the handling of the 
hundreds of thousands of dollars that every year found 
their way to and from the corporation's strong box. He 
was handsome, talented, modest, accommodating, inval- 

>le, and only twenty- two years of age. lie was moral 
and had no bad habits. He must have met with some 
accident or unfair play, since his accounts balanced to a 
penny. 

Some long head threw out the suggestion, il Tally the 
bank book with the cash book." The tally was tried. 
There \ .150 difference. That much had come into 

the office that had not gone into the bank. As the miss- 
ing man received all the cash as well as made the 
deposits, the discrepancy could be explained by him only. 
Perhaps he did not wish to give the explanation and to 
avoid it remained away. More research showed that on 
one day during the past four the company's credit at the 
bank received $1,500 less than the cash receipts; on 
another, $1,500; on still another, $1,500, and on the last 
of the four, $650 less. It was too plain — the young man 
had gone wrong. 

In the whole history of the company no man connected 
with its management had ever been so upset as was the 
President when he was made aware of this. With no 



54 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

abatement of his affection for the youth, he put on his 
hat, took all his energy with him, and set out on a search 
for the truth. 

It was the races. The cashier had run against the 
races and had lost. The President learned all there was 
in the whole story. He came back to his office sad, sorry 
as a strong man can be. He thought awhile. Then he 
drew out his personal bank check book, filled out an order 
for $5,150 payable to the order of the Western Stone 
Company, signed it, took it to the Directors' room, 
handed it to the proper official and said: "That covers 
the whole amount of the company's loss. Take it and 
call it square." 

44 But that would condone the offense. It would let 
the cashier off. That'll never do. He must be arrested 
and punished." 

44 No," said the President, 44 he must not be arrested 
and disgraced. He is not guilty. He is not to blame. 
I know, for I have found out. I make the company 
whole. Let that end it and stop the fuss. I'll find the 
young man, and don't you go on sending him to the devil. 
Leave the boy to me." 

Everybody in that office knew that what the President 
said must be true — true, too, in just the way he said it. 
He was the man to chase wrong clear around the world 
and then clear off it. But right — well, right knew him 
for a friend. 

But the thing got out. There are tongues that have 
no business but bad business. They work a thousand 
times harder than the tongues that praise. And so the 
police got astir. The police befriended the reporters, 
and then the editors began to palaver justice. And all 



PUBLIC SERVANT 65 

the time the only person that knew anything about the 
case was the President, and he was out trying to baffle 
the whole crowd. He engaged the smartest detectives 
in town and said to them: "Go find that young man. 
When you've found him take him in my name, and tell 
him to trust me as he always did. Put him some place 
where he can't be got at. Don't bother him with ques- 
tions and don't let anyone else. But make no record, 
and, beyond all, no charge. And don't break his heart 
by letting him think he's under arrest." 

The men went. But remorse beat them. The cashier 
had given himself up at a police station just before the 
detectives arrived there in their quest. They succeeded 
in carrying out the rest of their instruction 

The President made haste to the station, re-estab- 
lished relations with the boy, and obtained a clean breast 
from him. They had got from him, in the first place, all 
he had, the $2,500 it had taken him twelve years to save. 
Then he saw how easy it would be to get that back with 
the money he had Oil hand as executor of a young girl's 

ite. The $i,Soo he had in bis 
belonging to a fellow clerk would surely fe* 1 back. 

There v much now out that nothing but the com- 

pany's $5,150 would ever save him and the girl and the 
clerk. And then, the awakening, with no hope left. 
He wanted to go r ay to the penitentiary, where he 

would never again see any people but people like him- 
self, so he could look in someone's face. t He couldn't 
live unless he could look human beings in the face, and 
outside Joliet there was no hope for him. 

Newspapers can create a public appetite. This appe- 
tite then must be satisfied, and the creators of the taste 



56 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

must furnish the victim to be devoured. They are bound 

to care for their own progeny. Who is eaten is another 

question. So it came that there was a public demand 

for the destruction of the clerk. The demand began to 

press upon the Directors, and they commenced exertion 

upon the President. He told them of the whirl that took 

the clerk off his feet. He had been firmly on his feet 

for twenty-two years, and was now on them, and no doubt 

would remain erect the balance of his life unless the Jaw 

threw him down. He had lost his footing for only a few 

days. He was dizzy when he went down; couldn't see 

straight. He had been whirled. There had been a 

woman, capable of blinding the moral sight like Eve did 

with the apple on Adam; and men adept in the art of 

hypnotizing. These people had succeeded in creating a 

period of moral unconsciousness in the life of the clerk 

a period during which he had to do what they wanted him 

to do, and was not responsible. The Directors all thought 

this, too, at first; but then the press was making 

demands and so was the public, and it wouldn't do for 

men conducting great business affairs to ignore what 

the public demanded. They were inclined, therefore, to 

insist upon the President doing his duty in response to 

public sentiment, and having an indictment duly 

brought. 

The President saw the point, the point of sensibility 
in the directory. The clerk had been the most popular 
man in the company's service with all the builders and 
contractors in the city and for miles around who were in 
the habit of coming to the office to buy and settle for 
building stone. Scores of them had been in to ask about 
his fate. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 57 

"It is left in my hands," said the President, "with 
instructions to prosecute." 

"And can't the order be changed?" 

44 Not as long as the public demand calls for justice. 
The Directors sympathize with the boy but are influ- 
enced entirely in their decision to turn him over to the 
law by the public demand." 

"Public demand! There's nothing in that. You 
can't lay your finger on it. Suppose there was a public 
demand that had people in it, men you knew and could 
call by name. What effect would that have upon the 
Directors?" 

"It would be hard to tell until it appeared and tried 
to do something. " 

44 Well, we'll see." 

Then a great petition asking the President of the 
Western Stone Company to refrain from prosecuting the 
cashier, who had attracted and retained so many cus- 
tomers, etc., etc., was circulated for signatures. It came 
back with hundreds and hundreds of autographs, with 
the name of nearly every man and every firm that had 
ever done any building, paving, or construction work in, 
or anywhere near, the city of Chicago for many years 
past. When the Board got that it called in the President 
and said: "There has been a great change in public 
opinion. Just look at these names. It appears that the 
public is now almost unanimous in the opinion that the 
company should not prosecute the case against the 
cashier. Mr. President, you need not carry, the case any 
further." 

And so a carriage went round by a back way, to avoid 
reporters, and took the clerk to the President's house, 



58 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

where his wife had assembled many of the young man's 
relatives, and he was turned over free to them and went 
home with them. 

He is a rising man in the world now and fills a 
responsible position, and every week redeems part of his 
debt. He has a bright, sound future. And nobody tells 
this story as often as he does, since the newspapers made 
it public, and no one else tells it so well. He relates it 
that the real truth may be circulated to overtake and 
destroy the lies, as well as to induce young men to abso- 
lutely avoid having any financial dealings whatsoever 
with any people in this world who are engaged in callings 
not entirely respectable as well as legitimate. 



CHAPTKK VIL 

KNTEtcS PUBLIC LIFE— THE NOVICE AMONG ALDERMEN— A LUCK^ 

MISTAKE. 

IT was inevitable that a man whose career had been so 
conspicuously valuable to all who had entrusted him 
vvith the care of their interests should be called upon to 
me public duty in a community like that of 
Chicago. The city was commencing to attract the atten- 
tion of the world as a possible metropolis. Us expansion 
was certain and was already being determined by events. 
Mr. Madden had lived in the locality known for a long 
time as the Fourth Ward for about seventeen years. 
The district was proud of him a dent and referred 

to him as one rincipal examples of Chicago ability 

and enterpri 

A deserving young man one day called upon him and 
asked him for a letter of recommendation for a political 
clerkship at the disposal of the representative of that part 
of the ward in the City Council. Mr. Madden knew noth- 
ing about the methods of handling patronage, nor any- 
thing r< rig the | >f politicians. The appli- 
cant was fully competent and the letter was given. Not 
long- afterwards the recipient called again, said the recom- 
mendation had not been effective, and requested Mr. 
Madden to personally say a good word to the local dis- 
penser of offices. He went to the trouble of doing- this, 
got a promise he deemed satisfactory, and supposed the 

50 



60 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

affair to be then settled. In a week or so the young man 
called again and reported that he was still unemployed. 
Surprised, Madden made another trip and obtained more 
positive assurances. But the applicant continued idle. 
Then Madden went to headquarters to learn why such 
shuttling was carried on. He was amazed at the dis- 
covery that the representative who had made him so 
much trouble was really unable to do anything in the 
case. He had agreed to let a political organization which 
had assisted in his election control the appointments 
belonging to his district, and as this organization had no 
interest in the ward the places properly belonging to its 
quota had been filled by people living elsewhere. The 
unfairness and the dilatory character of the whole pro- 
ceeding aroused Madden's sense of justice. He criticized 
the policy in vogue in a style that caused the most indus- 
trious quotation and comment. 

This attracted political attention to him for the first 
time. His stand was so manly, straightforward and pop- 
ular that requests began to reach him urging- him to 
accept a nomination to the City Council as one of the 
representatives of the ward. At last these requests were 
combined into a great petition signed by 3,000 voters, 
one-half of the total number entitled to suffrage in the 
division. He accepted the nomination, equivalent, as he 
thought, to a demand and election, and in April, 1889, 
went sent by a plurality of 106 votes to represent the 
Fourth Ward in the Board of Aldermen. 

So little did he then know about what is called prac- 
tical politics, notwithstanding his broad and deep educa- 
tion regarding public affairs and principles, that when he 
went to take his seat in the city legislature he entered 



PUBLIC SERVANT 61 

the city hall for the first time, and when the session 
opened he saw for the first time a political branch of the 
government in operation. 

He had always been a Republican and as such had 
been elected. But he was looked upon as so unsophisti- 
cated politically by the managing members of his party 
in the Board that when the committees were formed for 
the session's work, the new member from the Fourth was 
assigned to that on Wharves and Public Grounds. The 
wharves were fixtures requiring little legislative atten- 
tion and the public grounds were then of so little impor- 
tance that putting a member on that committee was 
something like sending him abroad to get rid of him. 
The new member, however, did not know this, nor did he 
even suspect it. He took it for granted that he was made 
a committeeman to work. He studied the duties of his 
new position. When he knew what they were, he saw 
that there was a great deal to be done by his committee, 
although it had not had much to attend to for a long 
time. Its work had been so long appropriated by other 
committees, which by usage had obtained title to it and 
regular reference of it, that the one on Wharvesand Pub- 
lic Grounds for many sessions had seldom been heard of, 
except in the list when some new member in the Board 
was banished into it. It was not long before the legisla- 
ture was regularly treated to surprises. Every time any- 
thing properly belonging to the work Madden's commit- 
tee was originally created to do was on the point of being 
referred elsewhere, he arose and corrected the proceed- 
ing and had the task sent where it should be attended 
to. It seemed extraordinary at first that any man in the 
Council should actually hunt for work, as the "green" 



62 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

member seemed to be doing. The older sitters thought 
he would " get over it ;" but he did not. He kept on 
until his committee was before the house oftener than 
any other, and until the whole body was fully educated as 
to its prerogatives, and all attempt to encroach upon 
them was abandoned. By that time the annexation 
movement, which more than quadrupled the city's terri- 
tory, caused the creation of new divisions, and brought 
the addition of immense park areas, had made of the 
ignored committee the most desirable, if not the most 
important, in the legislature, and all the members were 
desirous of getting into it. The "greenhorn" from the 
Fourth was, however, as a fellow-member expressed it, 
now "at the head of the procession." He had attained 
his position simply by attending to the business to 
which he had been assigned. In the work he had dis- 
played such intelligence, business ability and capacity 
for "getting things through" that there was not the sug- 
gestion of an effort to either supersede him or to inter- 
fere with him. He was recognized as a great addition 
to the Board, and his ward commenced to gain influence 
in municipal legislation. 

At the' first meeting of the Republican members of the 
Council after the appointment of the committees Madden 
moved the adoption of a resolution pledging the mem- 
bers to unity of action in all matters respecting the city's 
welfare. He showed that some such action was neces- 
sary. The party was in a minority in the Board. If its 
vote always appeared solid in favor of good legislation 
and against bad, it would retard the latter and help the 
former, and besides create a public opinion that would 
surely increase the party representation in future Coun- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 63 

cils. This motion was greeted with surprise and pleas- 
ure. It was adopted. It drew attention to the mover 
and made him popular at once with his party 



CHAPTER VIII. 



PUBLIC SERVICE BEGINS— THE CHICAGO PROBLEM— THE SOLUTION 

UNDERTAKEN. 



IN the June following Madden's sudden advent into the 
public life of Chicago, the great annexation movement 
that had been agitating the community for a long time 
culminated in the addition to the city of all the region 
of Hyde Park, all of the town of Lake, all of Jefferson 
township, all of that of Lake View, and part of Calumet 
and Cicero townships. Never before was effected a 
municipal enlargement so stupendous in the difficulties it 
involved. When London expanded it simply took under 
one municipal government all the finished, contiguous 
and long adjusted parts of one great town. When 
Greater New York was formed the act of consolidation 
simply abolished separate local governments in the 
different parts of a community that had long been hom- 
ogeneous. 

It was altogether different in Chicago. The old city 
was compact, well built, well developed, and well gov- 
erned. It contained but thirty-seven square miles of 
territory. The occupied streets were graded, paved, 
watered, sewered and lighted. The transportation sys- 
tem was sufficient. The town was rectangular, long and 
narrow, running north and south along Lake Michigan. 
The tramways ran from the northern boundary to the 
southern in thoroughfares a few blocks apart and suffi- 
ciently accommodated the people. Hardly a cross-town 

64 



PUBLIC SERVANT 65 

line existed. There had not been travel enough back 
and forth across the narrow city to call into existence 
tramways for its accommodation. The police, fire and 
water service were more than ample. The water revenue 
had a surplus in the treasury of $800,000. 

All at once the town's area was increased from thirty- 
.en square miles to 186. One hundred and forty-nine 
square miles, more than four times the size of the old 
city, v. a stroke. This new territory v. 

practically ru: :*m land. Little ( 3 improved 

in an urban alation 

on the part of most of the owners of all this farm land 
that the act of consolidation inspired them to at once 
have it staked off into white and 

dense were the the city looked 

for a long time irrounded by old-fashioned country 

gra There were :nents, 

hardly any sidewalks, e, no fir em, 

no Here were 149 square 

miles thrown all at upon a rath til, well organ- 

ized city, ti . water, light, grade, police and govern. 

The new population wanted to be metropolitanized 
immediately. It □ full representation in the 

city legislature and it simply raised municipal pande- 
monium over every p -ment of the miraculous. 

Thousands of smart, unscrupulous men rushed into the 
territory, picked up bargains in unimproved* land, sur 
veyed and divided it into lots v put them on the market, 
with guaranteed improvements, at high prices, and then 
fell upon the Council with every art influence, scheme 
and corrupt proposition deemed necessary to loot the cor- 
poration and assist their speculations. 



66 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Hundreds of farmers' sons became ambitious to be 
policemen or firemen. Their parents, now city tax- 
payers, revenged themselves upon the men in town who 
stood in their way. 

The old laws set aside for sewerage purposes two mills 
on the total assessed valuation. Water mains were laid 
and connected by a plan that had always met every 
demand. When there were enough houses on a street to 
be mained to yield an annual water tax of ten cents a 
lineal foot, the water was put in; where there were not 
enough to do that it was furnished at the expense of the 
property owners along the way, who received certificates 
for the excess taxation. These entitled the holders to 
rebates, as soon as the receipts along the improvement 
yielded the money. When it came to draining farms, 
however, the case was disastrously different. It would 
have .cost §350,000 to lay the first main sewer in the town 
of Jefferson, to say nothing of laterals. The assessed 
valuation of the town at the city rate would not have 
yielded enough to lay that one drain in seventy years. 

Street improvements, which included watering, 
sewering, grading, and paving were obtained by ordi- 
nance secured by petition. The speculators who planned 
to have their far-out lands equipped with water would 
,obtain the ordinance for general improvement in the 
regular way, then, when the water mains were in and 
connected, they would secure the passage of another 
ordinance repealing the first, in this way getting water 
and escaping the costs of other improvements. 

There were few railroad facilities in any of the 
annexed territory. Where any existed they cost the 
passengers extra fares. These new tax-payers demanded 



PUBLIC SERVANT 6? 

extension of the car lines until they should cover both the 
length and breadth of the city, and that the companies 
should carry passengers for single fares with universal 
transfers. The car companies had got their franchises 
for twenty years in 1883, and in 1889, the period of 
annexation, were in a rather independent position. 

It was not long before it was realized that the city 
was being rushed straight into bankruptcy. The water 
fund had lost its §800,000 surplus, and the department 
was §1,500,000 in debt. All the departments were over- 
strained with work and being rapidly submerged in 
excessive expenditures Xo inhabited territory in the 
world had so many miles of steam railway in busy opera- 
tion. Several hundred people were killed every year at 
the crossings. These were in the city now. and the cor- 
poration was more easily reached in the courts than the 
companies could be. Damage suits for millions were 
piled up and clogged the cour 

It looked as if the pawnbrokers oi the world would 
get Chicago. It was the largest city on the globe in 
area, trying to carry on a metropolitan business on a 
village plan. It was a metropolis twenty-five miles long 
by fourteen miles wide attempting to parade in swell 
dress in the yardage that clothed it when it was eight by 
four. 

Incredible as it now seems, it is a fact that few of the 
clangers thrust upon the giant young city had been fore- 
seen or arranged for in the terms of annexation. The 
people appeared intoxicated with the greatness of Chi- 
cago's opportunities and they grasped at bigness with a 
kind of fury of strength. They were confident of pos- 
sessing full ability to meet and solve any problem that 



68 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

sudden greatness might put upon them. They made 
no preparation* for the titanic struggle, and unequipped 
they met it without a shirk. Such a risk was never 
before taken by any population since men began to live 
in communities. 

Looking back over the life of Chicago it must strike 
the historian that its people are the best poised and most 
courageous of all the assemblages of men. They are the 
indomitables of the race, and they are capable of any- 
thing the progress of civilization makes possible in civic 
life. 

No other local legislature that ever existed had such 
unparalleled difficulties to meet as were pressed upon the 
Board of Aldermen of Chicago from the period of annex- 
ation in June, 1889, until the formative period of the 
city's marvelous growth was passed in 1897; and no 
other law-making body ever acquitted itself of its task so 
creditably, all things considered, as did this body. Xo 
other had such abuse and misunderstanding to contend 
against, and no other deserved them less. 

The Alderman from the Fourth Ward had innocently 
precipitated himself into the forefront of the struggle by 
building up work for his obscure Committee on Wharves 
and Public Grounds. The annexations had made the 
committee properly the one of first importance at the 
start. Madden being a sound lawyer by education and 
commercial experience, soon found himself a directing 
power in the legislature's work of assimilation. His 
experience in handling men of all nationalities, as well 
as his ability to meet people of financial power, enabled 
him to avert danger by judicious compromise. His 
insight and power of statement made it easy for him to 



PUBLIC SERVANT 69 

clear the disputes of irrelevant matters and bring the 
essential things into the clear view of all. His character 
rapidly won general confidence and concentrated atten- 
tion upon whatever he espoused. The colleagues of his 
own party rallied about him as a safe leader, and those 
of the opposition gradually abandoned all attempts to 
meet him on anything but the real merits of the ques- 
tion. The presence and activity of such a man in a leg- 
islative body always results in that kind of public econ- 
omy which prevents wasteful discussion. Matters have 
to come to a head, as it wer^ when he is around on 
business intent. 

The ways and means of getting revenue for the city 
began to assume first importance in the Council's legis- 
lative work soon after the shock of the first raids upon 
the treasury brought the seri< the gigantic 

-ion horrfe to the municipal powers. The Finance 

mmittee of the Council, which had always had control 
of the methods of raising and disbursing the public funds, 
had never been much in the public eye before annexa- 
tion, because of the practically automatic character of 
the city's income and outgo. But now the income was a 
problematical matter, while the only thing that could 
be relied on respecting the expenditures was that they 
would constantly tend to be both incalculable and ruin- 
ous. Financial talent became indispensable on the com- 
mittee, and it was sought. The business career of the 
member from the Fourth was known to every well- 
informed citizen, and his financial skill was one of the 
town's boasts. He was pressed by his party colleagues 
to go on the Finance Committee; not only as a member 
of it, but as its Chairman. There was no difference of 



70 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

opinion among them as to his superior qualifications for 
the place. His political opponents conceded that he was 
the best man in the Board for the finance chairmanship, 
but, having a majority in the body, they made a party 
question of it and voted against giving him the office 
when he was proposed for it. The result was that he 
was put on the Finance Committee to do the work every 
one said he could do better than anyone else, but by 
party influence he was prevented from having his own 
way there. He became a member of the committee in 
his second councilmanic year. After serving two years 
on this committee, in 1893 he was made Chairman by 
the unanimous vote of the whole Council, which as a body 
always elected that officer. He was Chairman five years, 
the longest period the office has ever been held by one 
man in the history of the city. 

It did not seem to make any difference to Madden 
whether he was at the head of a committee or at the tail 
of it. so long as there was any work to be done. He 
never cared much for what is called credit for doing 
things. If they were to be done, he simply did them. 
He had such a capacity for accomplishing results that 
wherever he was in a working body, especially one that 
had financiering to do, he was practically the body, 
whether he was called the one end or the other or the 
middle. 

One of the first things Mr. Madden set about rectify- 
ing was the facility the old laws afforded speculators of 
acquiring improvement of their outlying lands at public 
expense. This was accomplished by throwing the bur- 
den of the cost entirely on the property benefited. If 
the land was worth improving, he contended, it should 



PUBLIC SERVANT 71 

be made to bear the cost. An ordinance was framed 
enacting that public improvements might be obtained 
by petition; but that when ordered the property bene- 
fited should be assessed the full cost of the changes, and 
that this sum, plus an extra charge for surveying and 
other incidental expenses, should be paid into the city 
treasury before any of the work would be done. When 
the city had in hand all the money that its officials should 
assess for the contemplated improvements, it would 
have the work done under a uniform public system of 
its own, and when through it would rebate to the prop- 
erty owners any surplus left. This would, by applying 
a general system of work, cost the property owners less 
than individual effort, and would secure uniformity in 
the city's development. The plan gave due publicity 
and opportunity for appeal and rectification, and con- 
served all but dishonest interests. It was bitterly 
opposed by open and secret attack, but it was carried 
through. It kept down unnecessary and unhealthy, as 
well as criminal, exploitation and gave the municipality 
proper control of its own growth. Each man's taxes for 
improvements were spent on his own land. The excess 
in the assessments enabled the city to have money on 
hand to include the square pieces of streets at intersec- 
tions when the ordained improvements ran from one 
block to another, as they often did. How important this 
was may be inferred from the fact that under this ordi- 
nance the people of Chicago afterwards built as much as 
150 miles of streets, 150 miles of sewers, 150 miles of 
water mains, and sixty miles of buildings in a single year. 
The town was growing during the period of this improve- 
ment at the rate of 10.000 inhabitants every month. 



72 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

The task of putting an end to railway manslaughter 
at the grade crossings was mainly left to the Fourth's 
representative. He from the first advocated the enforced 
elevation of all steam railway tracks throughout the 
entire city. Within the corporate limits there were sev- 
eral hundred miles of these tracks, and it was thought 
impossible to ever force the costly elevation of so much 
busily engaged trackage. It would be cheaper for the 
railroad companies to pay damages for deaths at any 
figure than endure the expense of some hundreds of mil- 
lions of dollars for raising their roadbeds. Madden 
thought differently, and persistently agitated track eleva- 
tion as not only politic but right in itself. Finally, early 
in 1892, he secured the appointment of a commission to 
investigate the subject and report to the Council the best 
method of solving the question. He was put on this 
committee and by it elected Chairman. The body visited 
all the cities in the East which had brought about track 
elevation. It studied the whole subject more thoroughly 
than it had yet been investigated. It found that in 
Rochester, N. Y., and in the state of New Jersey, the 
localities containing the most mileage of elevated steam 
roads, the companies had defrayed one-half the cost of 
elevation and the tax-payers the other, the damages to 
abutting property being met equally by each. The com- 
mittee on its return concluded to report in favor of com- 
pulsory elevation. In justice to the roads, however, the 
members agreed to confer with their officials to avoid 
injustice. The controversy at this stage was largely left 
to Madden. He lost no time in impressing upon the 
companies the determination of the Council to compel 
elevation, and the necessity of reaching some understand- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 73 

ing. It was pointed out that the city could interrupt 
traffic at every street crossing and make it absolutely 
impossible for the companies to transact business; and 
that it would resort to the use of this and every one of 
its other rights to force the raising of the roads and put 
an end to the destruction of human life in the streets. 

When the railway powers realized that further parley 
was useless and agreed to discussion, Madden, who was 
as good a business man as any of them, soon convinced 
them that in the long run it would pay the roads to ele- 
vate and do it at once, not only in the saving of litiga- 
tion, the payment of damages, and the injuries from 
public hostility, but also in the vastly increased business 
that could be done on the same mileage with tracks in 
the air, entirely free- from cross traffic and all the 
obstructions and dangers to be encountered on the sur- 
face of a busy commercial city twenty-five miles long and 
fourteen miles broad. The principal companies were 
brought over by his facts and reasoning, and he prepared, 
with their consent, and submitted to the Council and 
induced it to pass, the most extraordinary ordinance of 
the kind ever attempted in this country. It made the 
raising of the tracks throughout the city mandatory Upon 
the companies; put the entire expense on them, and 
made them subject for all damages to abutting property. 
The latter he got the companies to agree to by pointing 
out that juries would give verdicts that way anyhow. 

Under this ordinance upwards of $50,000,000 has 
already been spent in the work of track elevation in Chi- 
cago, and under it there is assured the utter abolition of 
every grade crossing in the town. 

The street paving question was left entirely by the 



T4 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Board of Aldermen in Mr. Madden's hands. How he ever 
obtained the time to master this problem in the way he 
did can only be surmised by attributing it to some kind 
of prodigious genius for work. He visited the cities in 
.America and Europe noted for the qualities of their pave- 
ments, and carried on a correspondence with street engi- 
neers of special experience and authority all over the 
world. As a result of all this labor he prepared a pam- 
phlet on street paving. It contained all the information 
in existence upon the subject, with such profound and 
valuable suggestions by the author that when it was 
handed in to the Board in his report, 10,000 copies were at 
once ordered printed for general circulation. The book 
rapidly gained such a reputation that it is yet used as a 
text authority in both European and American institu- 
tions wherein civil engineering is taught. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CRY OF "BOODLE" — THE CAUSE OF IT — WHO USE IT. 



IN the new city there were 5,600 miles of streets and 
alleys on the map. The extension of those in the old 
town called for this great mileage of thoroughfare. The 
transportation of the populace became at once the most 
pressing of the work thrust upon the legislature. The 
tramway lines in existence were nearly all served by 
horse-power, and few of them reached into the annexed 
territory. It was necessary to find means of inducing the 
car companies to build their lines to the northern and 
southern ends of the whole city, to introduce new parallel 
routes where the existing lines were too far apart, and to 
make cross-town connections at convenient distances. 
The people demanded single fares and universal trans- 
fers. Investigation showed that while the trunk lines, 
that is, those north and south, might afford transfer fares, 
few cross-town, or feeder, lines could. If such fares 
were made the condition for obtaining franchises for the 
east and west lines, therefore, it would be impossible to 
procure their construction by independent companies. 
Manifestly, the solution was in franchising the trunk line 
companies to make the connections as well as the exten- 
sions and to permit the fare question to remain in abey- 
ance. That method was adopted. Even under the 
arrangement it was difficult to procure the rapid building 

75 



76 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

of roads into the long stretches of thinly inhabited terri- 
tory. 

About this time the introduction of the cable and 
electric trolley methods of street car propulsion was 
being agitated in the larger cities. In this the Aldermen 
found a means of solving the entire transportation diffi- 
culty. Franchises for the substitution of cable or electric 
power for that of horses were bestowed in consideration 
of the necessary extensions or new constructions, and in 
this way the city secured the rapid development of the 
street car service it now has, justly claimed to be the 
most extensive and convenient in the world. 

When the surface service began to prove inadequate, 
elevated railway companies were invited to come to the 
rescue. They soon, as a matter of economy, abandoned 
steam for electric service. Hence, Chicago streets are 
free from the noise, dirt and general old-fashioned ugli- 
ness of the little racking steam motors that are still 
trying to do business on the elevated railways of Xew 
York City. 

While the population gladly availed itself of every 
improvement in the transportation system, it seemed 
ever ready to assume or believe that each step in the 
progress was obtained by corrupt means. Seldom was 
any grant made to a street car company that a cry of 
"boodle" did not accompany it. Perhaps in no city of 
recent growth has there been less t corruption than in 
Chicago in the work of developing street car service. 

Nevertheless, nearly every Alderman who had the 
courage to stimulate the investment of capital in the big 
town's street car lines, either by voting an extension of 
franchises, additions to them, or new charters, had to 



PUBLIC SERVANT 77 

face open or covered attacks upon his conduct. Matters 
grew so very bad in this habit of reckless abuse of the 
city's public servants, that men on assuming the duties 
of an aldermanic career were often compelled to start out 
with a firm resolution to wholly ignore the criticisms of 
the press. In this way the newspapers frequently lost 
their power altogether. If people would not believe 
what they said about good men, what they said about 
wicked servants was also ignored. This immunity kept 
many men in the public life of the city whose stay would 
have been impossible if the city press had conserved the 
power of its criticism. 

A great deal of the injustice that characterized much 
of the newspaper work during the period of Chicago's 
most rapid growth was due to the fact that much of the 
literary talent employed in the city at that time was nec- 
essarily imported from older cities of the East, principally 
from New York and Washington. There corruption 
unquestionably accompanied much of the public work, 
and the writers spoke with knowledge. Their constant 
acquaintance with official dishonesty led them to believe 
it was a universal accompaniment of public life, and they 
looked for it as a matter of course. In the new city 
these writers, having no real acquaintance with the men 
who were engaged in the herculean labor of giving the 
metropolis form, took it for granted they were the same 
as the eastern looters, and gauged their written censure 
upon this conjecture, making it severer and more ram- 
pant upon the hypothesis that the opportunities were 
greater than the well plucked East afforded. 

The conditions were, however, entirely different. 
The East was old and had a large population displaced 



78 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

by business competition. This population yielded the 
adventurers whose only remaining chances of making 
money, within any cover of respectability, lay in holding 
office under the opportunities afforded by the spoils system 
that gave them entry. In Chicago there was no old pop- 
ulation. There were no crowded-out men. There was 
work for all in normal times. There were outlets for 
every species of honest endeavor. The chances of mak- 
ing money were so numerous that it was difficult to get 
men to take part in public life. As a rule, only those 
accepted public tasks who could afford to work for little 
or no pay. These were either ambitious politically or 
were men inspired to do their share in the constructive 
work then necessary. There were exceptions, certainly, 
but they were fewer than the story of the building of any 
other large town could show. In Chicago the number of 
men who needed watching in public life never was large 
enough to dominate any period of its legislation. During 
the eight years following the great annexation, the time 
during which the city was shaped and fitted out for its 
career, the Board of Aldermen was composed almost 
wholly of " city builders;" of men broad-gauged, able, 
honest, hard-working; who knew the requirements of a 
cosmopolitan city, believed firmly Chicago had them all, 
and who had enough civic pride and national patriotism 
to give their time, their talents and their means to the 
arduous, and generally thankless, task of constructing 
the most suitable foundation for the largest city in the 
world, and then seeing to it that the work of superstruc- 
ture was properly commenced and adequately prose^ 
cuted. 

Said an eastern political reformer one day to Mr. 



PUBLIC SERVANT V.) 

Madden: "I am perfectly astonished at you and your 
methods in the Board." 

"What causes your astonishment?" was the reply. 

"The fact that you allow such men to be members of 
the Council as many that have seats, and the fact that a 
man like you should act with them and secure the pass- 
age of bills with their votes. Why, some of them are not 
gentlemen at all; their language and demeanor show 
that. What will become of your city, if its laws are to 
be made by men who are not even gentlemen?" 

"If all the voters in Chicago were clergymen, I sup- 
pose the Council would be composed of bishops," 
answered Madden; "if the suffrage were limited to col- 
lege graduates, the Aldermen might all be professors. 
Hut as things are this cannot be. Suffrage is universal 
here, and the people who have the right to choose their 
lawmakers will not select bishops and professors. These 
voters prefer to have their laws made by people just like 
themselves. It may be they imagine that folks like 
themselves are more apt to give them what they as tax- 
payers pay for than clergymen and school teachers 
would be. However that may be, the Board of Aldermen 
is elected by the tax-payers, and is perhaps just the kind 
of body the people desire to make their laws. Now, it is 
the law that neither I nor any other man can get a city 
ordinance legally made unless it receives the consent of 
a majority of the men who are elected Aldermen, whether 
they are what you call gentlemen or not. If we should 
refuse to propose any city legislation until all the mem- 
bers who have a right to vote on it were what you might 
certify to be gentlemen, the city, I think, would stop, 
and I am afraid it would stay stopped a long time. 



80 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Every man in that Board has the same right in it that I 
have; his vote counts as much as mine does; he repre- 
sents what his constituency wants in the city government 
just as thoroughly as I do what the Fourth Ward desires; 
and his people believe he is just as much of a gentleman 
as my people think I am. People differ in their views 
as to what a gentleman is. I believe no ward in this 
city has sent any member here who is not considered a 
gentleman by those who sent him. They are, therefore, 
according to the powers that have the deciding voice, all 
gentlemen — the whole sixty-eight of them — gentlemen of 
different kinds. Our population is cosmopolitan. The 
Scandinavian wards send Scandinavian gentlemen; the 
Polish wards, Polish gentlemen; the Italian wards, 
Italian gentlemen; the Bohemian wards, Bohemian gen- 
tlemen; the German wards, German gentlemen; the Irish 
wards, Irish gentlemen; the American wards, American 
gentlemen, and so on through the thirty-four wards 
composing the city. It so happens that the foreigners in 
town outnumber the native-born three to one. On this 
account, there are more foreign gentlemen in the Council 
than native. It is the result, you see, of the American 
system of representative government. Now which of these 
foreign gentlemen would you have me refuse to do busi- 
ness with in my efforts to get city legislation enacted? 
Shall I refuse to procure a needed ordinance if a Pole pre- 
sumes to vote for it, or a Swede or a Bohemian? Or is it the 
Italians or the Germans you think are not gentlemen? It 
may be that you would bar out from your class only the 
Irish members? You see, if only the Americans in the 
Board are gentlemen according to your standard, and 
you confine the making of the city laws to them, there 



PUBLIC SERVANT 81 

are not enough to pass any. The Irish, the German, and 
the other foreign gentlemen are needed to help. It is the 
American system, my dear sir, and in Chicago we find it 
works very well indeed. Much confusion arises in our 
minds sometimes when we forget that a man may be well 
informed and very able, although he makes a poor show- 
ing when he attempts to speak our language. That may 
be the only thing he lacks knowledge of. Several of 
those Aldermen whose speech makes you and the galleries 
laugh are much better educated and informed than 
others whose statements you applaud as the utterances of 
gentlemen. If you will permit me to put myself in your 
class, what sort of an impression would you and I make, 
with all our knowledge and polish, if we were in the civil 
government of Paris and attempted to talk good political 
economy in bad French? You see, representative govern- 
ment compels us to do the best we can with the legislative 
material the people give us. The more you look into it 
the less funny it is and the more serious and good." 

The auditor grew very restive while getting the 
answer to his shallow inquiry. He was hardly gentle- 
man enough to wait for it all. "Beg pardon/' said he; 
"I didn't know, you know. Good-day." 

"Oh, I beg pardon, too," rejoined Madden; "I cannot 
believe you didn't know; you simply didn't think. 
Think better of us hereafter, please." 

To a celebrated college President who made a similar 
criticism, Mr. Madden said: "Legislation in this Council 
is almost invariably the result of compromise. Chicago is 
a city of nationalities. All the countries of the world are 
largely represented in the two millions of people we legis- 
late for in this Board. We have more Poles, more Bohemi- 

6 



82 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ans, more Germans, more Irishmen in Chicago than there 
are in most of the large cities in Poland, Bohemia, Germany 
or Ireland. The Americans are in the minority with us. 
Our city government is a representative government. In 
it all classes of our people have an equal voice. What 
prevails does so by the consent of the majority. That 
consent must be obtained for success. These different 
men are here to speak for our differing peoples because 
the latter cannot all be here to speak for themselves. I 
do not see the man solely — in him I always see the 
people who sent him here to make their wishes known ; 
I see the constituency. Each constituency is equal. 
The men here may be unequal as men; but in the law 
they are equal as representatives. They must be looked 
upon in that way and so treated or there cannot be, fair 
legislation. It is unjust to think that because a constit- 
uency of foreign-born Chicagoans desires some legislation 
that an American district does not ask or wish, it is on 
that account bad. Very little bad legislation has ever 
been sought in this Council since I have been in it. I 
know that much of the legislation proposed here has been 
called bad, but I also know that nearly every allegation 
of fraud that has ever been made against Chicago Coun- 
cil action was inspired by the 'stop-thief ' principle. It 
is the cry of the schemer who is 'knocked out' or fears to 
be, raised to save himself or to revenge himself. Every 
ordinance proposed to improve civic conditions causes the 
evil threatened with displacement to howl 'corruption!' 
and every bill granting the use of a public utility to a 
deserving corporation draws from the rejected seeker the 
cry of 'boodle!' These slanders sometimes deceive the 
press and often do the public, but they seldom fool 
the Aldermen." 



CHAPTER X. 



STREET RAILWAY FRANCHISES— THE BEST SOLUTION— SOME 
EXAMPLES. 



ONE of the greatest evils which resulted from the 
unthinking and indiscriminate attacks upon the 
motives of the city's legislators was that which grew into 
a general demand that every public franchise within the 
city's gift should, when about to be bestowed, be put up 
at public auction and sold to the highest bidder. It was 
argued that if public utilities were worth anything in the 
nature of cash payments, the city should get all the pro- 
ceeds instead of having them intercepted, as was alleged, 
by the city's legislative servants. The argument, without 
examination, seemed plausible; but upon analysis, really 
proved fallacious. If corporations had to pay for fran- 
chises, under the spoils system then prevailing in Chi- 
cago, it would have been better to let the Aldermen take 
the pay than to leave the money for the City Hall to 
appropriate, upon the assumption that both the legisla- 
tive and executive branches of the municipal government 
were equally corrupt. The former could have claimed 
they were the discoverers of the money. This would 
have been an inconclusive claim, of course, but the City 
Hall had none at all. 

It required a good deal of fortitude to stand up against 
the public demand for cash pavment for franchises at 

83 



84 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

that time in Chicago. The municipality was all the time 
in arrears and all the time in need of money. It was 
growing so fast that it was generally found impossible to 
keep income and expenditure in tally. Mr. Madden, 
however, after bestowing all the study he could upon the 
question, concluded that it was better to not sell fran- 
chises for lump sums and put the money into the local 
treasury. It would be better to obtain all the franchises 
were worth in some other way. Gradually he worked 
out a plan of obtaining franchise values that would all 
go to the town without any possible diversion. The 
question had now become one of absorbing interest, 
because most of the street car lines were being consoli- 
dated and the corporation supposed to be operating them 
was putting out tenders to ascertain on what basis the 
city would extend all the tramway franchises that 
expired in 1903. Several measures bearing upon this 
movement were introduced and discussed in the Board 
of Aldermen. The discussion provoked resulted in the 
formation and general entertainment of the opinion that 
a twenty-year renewal would bring the sum of $20,000,000 
from the corporation. Such an amount was desirable to 
the municipality for public improvements and to the 
spoils politicians for handling. The Alderman from the 
Fourth, in a public address on civic reform, boldly 
declared that he was opposed to cash sales of franchises. 
He stamped them as transactions that could always in 
municipal governments be made to partake of the nature 
of blackmail. He took the ground that in the case of a 
street railway company seeking a franchise for the use 
of a public thoroughfare and willing to pay for it, there 
were three parties interested in the payment whose 



PUBLIC SERVANT 85 

rights should be considered. There was, first, the general 
public that made up the municipality; second, the people 
owning the property on both sides of the way to be trav- 
ersed; third, the travelers who paid the fares and whose 
patronage supported the line and returned the cost of its 
construction. If the city got the money, neither the 
injured property owners nor the fare payers might ever 
receive benefit from any part of its expenditure. If the 
sum were spent on the street used, then citizens living 
elsewhere, who never rode in that street, would not 
obtain any advantage from the fund. If the payment 
were made in reduced fares altogether, then neither the 
property owners along the road nor any other citizens, 
unless they patronized the line, would derive any advan- 
tage. If the payment were divided into a reduction of 
fares and a care of the street used, all interests would 
receive consideration. The general public would be 
relieved of the cost of maintaining the thoroughfare. It 
might cut down taxation that much, or spend that much 
more on other streets. The property owners would be 
assured of constantly well ordered pavements and a well 
kept street in front of their houses. The passengers 
would ride for less along the line and by an extension of 
the policy would have the certainty of being able to ride 
everywhere else in the city for less. This plan, Mr. 
Madden argued, would use the money paid for street 
railway franchises in a way that would give the benefit 
of it to those who made the railways possible. It would 
reach every one of this class. No other plan would. He, 
therefore, advocated it as the municipal policy. 

To the clear-headed and disinterested Madden's pro- 
posed s.olution was instantly acceptable. Those belong- 



86 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ing to other classes could see no value in it, or pretended 
they could not. The proposition was assailed on many 
sides from many motives. Madden was challenged to 
produce an instance of the successful operation of any 
plan in any way similar to his. He accepted the chal- 
lenge. 

The Wentworth Avenue car line was operated under 
a franchise that lapsed on that part between Twenty- 
second and Thirty-ninth Streets. The company requested 
a renewal. Mr. Madden asked as compensation that the 
company pave the street between curb and curb, keep it 
constantly in repair, keep it clean in all kinds of weather 
and sprinkled in summer, and curb the sidewalks on both 
sides. The company did not hesitate at all over the 
proposition. 

The company operating the car line in Indiana 
A. venue desired to change its power from horses to elec- 
tric trolley. It was given permission subject to the con- 
sent of a majority of the property owners on both sides 
of the thoroughfare. This ran through Madden's ward. 
The street was fully occupied and nearly all the houses 
were of the better class, many of them palatial. The 
horse cars were bad enough, with their slow, irregular 
service, their noise and dirt. The proposed trolley was 
deemed by many intolerable. Mr. Madden was appealed 
to for advice. He examined the situation. Much of the 
pavement was Nicholson wooden block, sunken, uneven, 
rotting. He got from the company an acquiescence in 
the proposition to pave the entire street with asphaltum 
of the best quality from sidewalk to sidewalk; keep the 
roadway always in complete repair; keep it sprinkled in 
summer and free from snow in winter, and always clean, 



PUBLIC SERVANT 87 

and to lay and maintain the curbing on both sides, for 
the privilege of substituting the trolley for the horse. 
He advised the property owners to accept these terms. 
He pointed out the superiority of the trolley service, its 
greater cleanliness, speed, regularity and power, and 
dwelt on the advantage of having asphaltum instead of 
wood, and of having the roadway always clean and clear. 
He also said the company, in case the propostion was 
rejected, would undoubtedly sooner or later obtain the 
majority consent needed, even if it had to purchase it, 
which would really be cheaper than to carry out the pav- 
ing, cleaning and maintenance proposal. The people 
were excited and angry and stubborn. They declined 
the company's overtures. The result was what Madden 
foresaw. The company eventually secured the majority 
consent and erected the trolley. It gives Indiana Avenue 
one of the best street car services in the country, but the 
beautiful thoroughfare still has the unsightly patched-up 
pavement and the uneven curbing. 

One of the most valuable freight lines in the metrop- 
olis is the Calumet and Blue Island route in South Chi- 
cago. This road was originally proposed by the Illinois 
Steel Company. It desired to erect an additional mill at 
its plant on the Calumet. It needed additional railway 
accommodations to do that. Without them it would be 
compelled to increase its facilities by erecting the pro- 
posed new mill at its Joliet plant. The mill would fur- 
nish employment at the start for 3,000 men. The com- 
pany asked the Council for a franchise for a right of way 
that would place the tracks about four blocks from the 
water along three-quarters of a mile of the lake shore. 
; The entire right of way would be through marshes and 



88 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

sand-dunes. To go elsewhere would cost for right of 
way more than the enterprise would be worth to the 
company. 

The appearance of the proposed ordinance granting 
this application raised a storm in the Council and a bigger 
one in the northern part of the city, where the merits of 
the question could not be seen. It was many weeks 
before the Council. The oftener it was brought up for 
consideration the- more public denunciation it aroused. 
The interests opposed to its passage succeeded until the 
very last in inflaming the people against it. One of the 
most successful schemes devised to defeat its adoption 
was the proposal by "an objecting property owner to 
donate the city sixteen acres for park purposes on the 
lake front between Ninety-sixth and Ninety-eighth 
streets if the Council would refuse to allow the road to be 
built along that route. This caught the popular imagi- 
nation. Delegations of all kinds went before the Aldermen 
and besought them to save the water front for the weary 
w r orkers of South Chicago and secure the proffered 
"breathing spot" and "play-ground" for the "babies 
and women at least. " One deputation of ladies made a 
pathetic appeal on this score. The Illinois Steel Com- 
pany was under a cloud in the popular mind because of 
recent strikes among its employes, and the cry was 
raised that the railway scheme was a subterfuge to 
acquire a right to part of the lake front. The Chicagoans 
were sensitive to everything that looked like an encroach- 
ment on the lake front. Mr. Madden and other public 
men had educated them into the resolution of setting 
apart forever for park uses the entire lake front in the 
city. There appeared to be no hope for the bill. None 



PUBLIC SERVANT 89 

but a few of the hardiest men in the Board dared advo- 
cate it. The Alderman from the Fourth voted with his 
party, which had declared opposition to the ordinance. 
He had not looked carefully into the matter, taking it 
for granted that his party's leaders had sufficiently done 
this to justify his action. The fact was that these leaders 
had not examined into the merits of the question. Their 
attitude was taken on the general principle that it was 
wise to oppose anything desired of the Council by the 
Illinois Steel Company. After Mr. Madden had twice 
voted against the bill and had by so doing made its pros- 
pects hopeless, Mr. Marshall Field and other prominent 
business men, who were thoroughly acquainted with the 
facts in the case and alive to all things conducive to the 
city's welfare, called a conference of citizens to consider 
the merits of the dispute between the Council and the 
great steel company. The meeting appointed a commit- 
tee to visit South Chicago and look into the matter on the 
ground. This committee requested Mr. Madden to be 
its guest during the journey. He accepted the invitation 
and went. 

The investigation was thorough and convinced Mad- 
den that his attitude was wrong. He at once changed it 
and went before the Council and told it the truth. He 
said it was foolish to oppose the measure simply because 
the steel company wished it passed; that the bill had 
merits of its own which appealed with particular force to 
the interests of the city. With the road the company 
could afford to put up the additional mill. Without it, 
it could not. The erection of the mill meant the employ- 
ment at once of 3,000 more skilled workmen at high 
wages. That would add no fewer than 15,000 inhabitants 



90 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

to the city. The gain would be but the initial advantage, 
as the mill would grow with the increased railway facil- 
ities the new road would furnish the steel company. The 
railway proposed would open up a new region then unin- 
habited because inaccessible, and would in a short time 
add the population of a ward to the city. All the munic- 
ipality had to do for this was to grant a franchise that 
would endanger no public interest, interfere with no 
private right, and cost nothing. Men having faith in the 
enterprise were ready to take all the risk of it and put up 
all the money necessary to carry it through. In regard 
to the opposition that had been aroused against the 
project and which had deceived him into voting twice 
against it, he was prepared to state from personal inves- 
tigation that there was no good ground for it. In fact, it 
had been started and built up entirely by people who 
wanted the road between the agreed terminals, but who 
insisted on having it laid out along another route. This 
would take it through property they had to sell. One of 
these people had 300 lots he believed the company would 
have to buy if the project as before the Council could be 
defeated and the road diverted into the only other route it 
could take. The park land offered lay buried, he said, in 
from twelve to fourteen feet of Lake Michigan water, out- 
side of other immersed territory the donor proposed to re- 
tain for himself. t4 Why, I rode all over it on a tug drawing 
ten feet!" he exclaimed. To fill in the proffered breath- 
ing spot and raise it sufficiently to enable the breathers 
to stand upon it with dry feet would cost the city not less 
than $500,000, and that expenditure would make the 
donor's inside contiguous reserve worth a large fortune 
to him. It was these land speculators alone who had 



PUBLIC SERVANT 91 

raised all the opposition. He was prepared to give their 
names either privately to Councilmen desirous of know- 
ing the truth, or to the whole Board if that were necessary 
to remedy the wrong that was being done. Against all 
this was the steel company's plan of erecting additional 
works at a cost of $2,000,000, in which would be paid out 
in new wages every year several hundred thousand dol- 
lars. Every person who would be affected in any way by 
the road if constructed, except those speculators, not 
only desired the building of the tracks, but wished it 
done along the route asked for of the Council. Mr. 
Madden's report and the cold, hard facts he gave made 
those who had been caught by the apparent philanthropy 
of the opposition feel silly. His statement, coming 
from a colleague above suspicion, had the effect of bring- 
ing over to the support of the enterprise enough mem- 
bers who secretly favored it, but had not dared to openly 
vote for it, to secure its passage, in spite of even the 
Mayor's public opposition. 

When the Calumet and Blue Island ordinance was 
passed by Mr. Madden's influence, there was a furore of 
public denunciation, which lasted for a long time and 
was powerful enough to destroy any man vulnerable to 
public attack. An example of its influence was seen in 
the conduct of a public man who believed fully in the 
enterprise and for a long time advocated it, and was even 
on the committee with Mr. Madden which was sent to 
look into the scheme. He joined with the Alderman and 
the others of that committee in unanimously recommend- 
ing that the Council pass the ordinance. But the public 
storm frightened him into complete desertion from any 
further support, either private or public. 



92 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

The road has proven one of the best for the city and 
its people ever allowed by the Council to be constructed. 
The Illinois Steel Company to-day employs more than 
five times as many men at its South Chicago plant as it 
had at work before it obtained permission to build the 
road, which is five times as many as it could employ there 
without the road. 

These examples of fairness to railway corporations 
and justice to the tax-payers added to Mr. Madden's influ- 
ence in public life. They also gave vogue to his steady 
and intelligent opposition to the idea of selling franchises 
for sums of money to be turned into the treasury as 
temptations to official cupidity or public extravagance. 
As the time approaches for the expiration of the street 
car franchises, as 1903 draws near, public opinion in 
Chicago is rapidly crystallizing into the Madden senti- 
ment, that the best payment for the use of the city 
streets by transportation companies is the one that will 
result in lower fares to the travelers and complete care 
of the roadways occupied. For nearly a decade he has 
claimed that a twenty-year renewal of the franchises 
expiring in 1903 should net the city at least the sum of 
$20,000,000, to be expended at the rate of $1,000,000 a 
year on the streets used, as well as a reduction of fares 
to perhaps three cents per passenger. 



CHAPTER XL 



A GREAT FINANCIER — THE WAY CHICAGO WAS FINANCED — THE WAY 

IT IS NOW. 



THE process of obtaining the revenue for the annual 
expenditures and of appropriating it when esti- 
mated was laborious and complicated. The first step 
was the ascertaining of the amount the city would prob- 
ably secure for the expenditure. This was arrived at by 
calculating the sum two per cent, of the assessed valua- 
tion of the real and personal property owned in the cor- 
porate limits would yield after the town assessors had 
completed their estimates and they were corrected by 
the State Board of Equalization. When this amount was 
arrived at, there was added to it what all the saloon and 
other licenses w r ould bring from January ist to December 
31st of the year under consideration. The license rev- 
enue could nearly always be calculated with approximate 
exactitude; that from taxation never could. The latter 
was uncertain because of constant legal resistance, tax- 
dodging and loose methods in collection. While the 
license fees produced cash, the taxes took about twelve 
months to gather. To bridge over there were two 
expedients. One was to pay expenses from the general 
fund, and the other w r as to borrow on vouchers bearing 
on the taxes as they came in. The general fund was the 
sum that had been saved by all the departments of the 
municipal government from the appropriations made to 

93 



94 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

them during the previous year. As a rule, the total of 
these savings was always inadequate to meet the deficit 
caused by slow or irregular collection of the taxes, owing 
to the very rapid growth of the town and the constant 
emergency expenses. The ' borrowing was habitual, 
expensive and frequently so difficult to accomplish that 
thousands of municipal employes were often kept from 
their salaries months at a time. 

When the estimates of revenue were made up by the 
Finance Committee of the Council, whose business it was 
to attend to all this preliminary work, it could be guessed 
how much money the city could afford to spend during 
the coming year. The next step was to find out how 
much all the departments desired to use. This was 
learned by calling upon the official heads of each to send 
in detailed demands for all their probable financial needs 
for the whole year ahead. These demands included the 
number of persons to be employed, the title, position and 
salary of each, and the description of the work or duty 
every one of them was to be assigned to perform; the 
amount needed for buildings, repairs and other construc- 
tion and maintenance purposes; and the costs of new 
bridges, sewers, streets, and subways, as well as water 
and sewer pumping, street cleaning, and so on. 

These demands were called for on the first of the 
year. Generally it took about a month to get them all in 
hand. When they were in, the Chairman of the Finance 
Committee called that body together and placed before it 
in detail all the information collected respecting both the 
revenue expected and the appropriations demanded. 
The items on both sides were then scrutinized, debated 
and sifted down to the minutest detail. This work occu- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 95 

pied many hours every day for three or four weeks. It 
was usually completed about March ist, and was nine 
times out of ten accomplished by scaling down the 
demands to about one-fourth their original sum. The 
committee then reported its recommendations to the 
Council. The Board organized itself into a committee of 
the whole and worked over the matter for perhaps a 
week. The result was placed before the Council in reg- 
ular session. In this, open controversy dealt with all the 
items, each interested department obtaining some kind 
of hearing against the paring down decided on. Finally, 
the Council adopted the Finance Committee's report in 
its amended condition. 

The report as approved was now sent to the Mayor as 
the year's appropriation bill. To him rushed all the dis- 
satisfied department interests and made their last essays. 
The Executive had the right to veto any item in the 
bill, or any number of items, and to approve the others. 
He returned it to the Board, with or without vetoes. It 
required a two-thirds vote in the Council to pass any 
vetoed item. The opposition to the Mayor seldom could 
rally such a vote, and he often succeeded, when all other 
interests had failed to do it, in killing certain proposed 
expenditures. When the bill was at last voted on by the 
Council, after coming from the Executive's hands, it 
became the legal appropriation for the city's expendi- 
tures for that fiscal year, which began on January ist. 
The work had to be completed by midnight on March 
31st. Failure to finish the task then made it impossible 
for any of the city departments to obtain any regular 
income for the ensuing twelve months. 

When the appropriation bill was passed by the Board 



96 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

of Aldermen, it became the duty of the Finance Commit- 
tee to see that all the departments received the share of 
the revenue assigned to them ; to attend to the task of see- 
ing that the money was used for the purposes towards 
which it was contributed; and then to arrange for extra 
allowances when they became necessary, and procure the 
cash to meet them. The committee generally left this 
all to its Chairman, who was elected by the whole Council 
because of his ability in this kind of work. 

The Chairman of the Finance Committee, it will be 
seen, was practically the most important member of the 
city legislature. He was of necessity the Finance Minis- 
ter of the municipality. It was his duty to know at all 
times what the condition of the city's financial resources 
were; to visit all departments of the government every 
day; to see that those in charge were conducting them 
in an economical manner, and that they were not exceed- 
ing the appropriations set apart for them without abso- 
lutely good reasons. He had to familiarize himself with 
every detail of the management of each department ; to 
know its needs and be able to say whether the number 
of men asked to perform the work going on was requisite 
or in excess; to listen to complaints on disputed claims 
against the corporation and to secure evidence thereon ; 
to act with the Mayor and Comptroller on all important 
financial matters in which the city was interested; 
to be a traveling encyclopaedia of information on every 
question of municipal administration; to carry out all 
orders of the Finance "Committee, whose executive officer 
he was, and all orders the Council saw fit to give him to 
attend to relating to city business of every kind. He 
had to investigate and report on additional water, sewer, 



PUBLIC SERVANT 97 

bridge, and street needs; to enquire into and inform 
the Board about every occasion or emergency requiring 
unforeseen expenditure of public money, and to stand 
between the tax-payers and all attempts to collect dis- 
puted bills. In addition, he had to adjudicate all claims 
against the city for damages before the cases were turned 
over to the law department for final action. These 
claims amounted to millions every year, and hundreds 
and thousands of them were annually cast out after inves- 
tigation. 

The enormous amount of work thrown on the Chair- 
man of the Finance Committee during the seven years 
after annexation required his best thought and energy 
for an average of not less than eight hours every day 
during the greater part of each year. He had to per- 
sonally see not less than one hundred people each day 
and discuss with them every question put to him on any 
phase of the city's business. He was obliged to circum- 
vent the efforts of the crafty to impose upon the public, 
and to withstand the enmity and revenge of the disap- 
pointed. He was the great buffer between the treasury 
and all its assailants, and he had to possess vast resisting 
as well as extraordinary recuperative powers. 

No other man that ever was elected to the Chicago 
Board of Aldermen succeeded in performing the duties of 
Finance Minister more than a couple of terms in succes- 
sion; Madden held the office five. His five years were 
the most trying in the history of the city. They were 
the years of adjustive growth; those in which a financial 
policy had to be extracted and formed out of conditions 
so new that there was no experience on which to base 
operations. The work pulled him down and nearly 



98 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

brought him to a grave. But he stuck to it, completed 
it, and when at last he did retire he left an established 
system that was nearly automatic. 

When he first assumed the cares of that office the con- 
dition of the city's financial business was such that it had 
required never less than ten full days to get the Finance 
Committee's annual appropriation report passed as a bill 
by the Council. During his last year in office he had 
accomplished such systematic method in the conduct of 
financial legislation that the longest time it then required 
to obtain the Board's acceptance of the same committee's 
annual budget was twenty-seven minutes, and the short- 
est seventeen. Only once "was any reduction made by 
the Council in any of his annual appropriations, and that 
amounted to $265. When elected Finance Minister the 
General Fund was inadequate by $1,500,000 at least every 
year; when he resigned it had been built up to reliable 
and automatic sufficiency. 

During his first year as Finance Minister he saved the 
city $1,000,000, and during his second $1,500,000, by 
cutting off unnecessary expenditures without any impair- 
ment of the public service, while he at the same time 
increased its revenue. He found the salaries reasonable 
and refused to permit them to be reduced. He insisted 
that none of the public servants was overpaid and resisted 
every effort to put them on poverty wages. He stood 
for efficient and well paid labor and effected his econ- 
omies by destroying extravagant or useless expenditures. 
He augmented the revenues by developing the locality's 
commercial and manufacturing advantages, in this way 
increasing the population and enlarging the taxable prop- 
erty. By such means he managed gradually to raise the 



PUBLIC SERVANT 99 

public school appropriation from §3,000,000 to $8,000,000 
per annum. Whenever the departments found it neces- 
sary to legitimately spend more than had been allotted to 
them, he never hesitated to help them out. If the short- 
age resulted in difficulty in meeting the pay rolls, he 
would without delay procure a loan rather than have the 
employes suffer. 

An instance of his disposition in this respect was his 
borrowing from a number of banks the sum of $600,000, 
during November, 1894, to pay the fire and police salaries 
for the two previous months, when the necessary con- 
struction accounts of these departments, added to tax 
delinquencies, left no money on hand with which to pay 
these needy and deserving men. 

The Alderman never lost his early sympathy for labor. 
While in New York on business one day during the 
period of his finance ministry, in November, 1894, he 
noticed in the papers of that city serious reflections on 
Chicago's treatment of its public laborers. The incident 
that furnished the jealous writers foundation for their 
abusive attacks on Chicago's credit was the sudden and 
summary discharge from employment, without pay, of 
200 poor men who had been engaged at moderate wages 
in shifting the water mains in Lake street. This was 
hard and unhealthful toil. It had been made necessary 
by the construction in that thoroughfare of the pillar 
foundations for the elevated railway then being erected. 
When the Council had granted the company permission 
to build, Mr. Madden had secured a proviso that it should, 
before the commencement of work, deposit in the city 
treasury sufficient cash to cover the cost of removing the 
water pipes away from the line of the pillars. Surveys 



100 MARTIN B. MADDEN ' 

showed that this work would cost $35,000. The com- 
pany agreed to the proposition. When the Alderman read 
of the discharge of the 200 laborers he knew they could 
not have been set to work at first unless the company 
had carried out its part of the contract, as there was no 
other fund than that arranged for with it available for 
their employment. He at once telegraphed asking why 
the men had been dismissed. He was answered there was 
no fund at hand with which to pay their wages. Astounded, 
he took the first express train home. He went straight 
to the treasurer's office and found there the railway 
company's certified deposit of $35,000. Going to the 
department of public works, he learned that office had to 
let the men go and stop the work because the Comptroller 
refused to cash the warrants drawn on him for the wages 
of the laborers, on the ground that he had no funds on 
hand applicable for the purpose. When the Alderman 
informed him of the presence of the company's money 
in the treasury, the Comptroller replied that he had no 
official knowledge of its presence there, as the Treasurer 
had not yet legally notified him of it. There was a 
rustle in that department and the workmen got their 
money and re-employment. The episode shows one of 
the many causes of popular discontent with official man- 
agement of public affairs. 

Instances like this were not rare. All kinds of 
schemes were resorted to by people who desired to have 
money out safely at good rates to get and keep the city 
in their debt. Sometimes officials connived at this. At 
others the creditor derived advantage from official 
unwillingness to divulge shortage in other directions. 
The gas bill against the city was permitted to run and 



PUBLIC SERVANT 101 

accumulate for sixteen months, until it had reached the 
sum of $190,000. In this way the municipality was per- 
mitted to fall into arrears. It was so solvent that invest- 
ors seeking interest allowed their claims to rest as long- 
as they could; it was so unreliable as to dates of payment 
that creditors exacted and obtained high rates for their 
patience; and heads of departments were so constantly 
pressed for money because of the astonishing and incal- 
culable development of the town, that they were prone 
to incur any kind of obligation that would enable them 
to have funds for unanticipated needs. It was no won- 
der that the total arrearages grew until they amounted 
to the sum of $7,000,000. Then there was an attempt- 
to induce the city government to issue bonds to raise this 
amount. This could not be done without the consent of 
the State Legislature, the city being prohibited by law 
from issuing bonds. Chicago's possibilities were so uni- 
versally appreciated that there was no time after 1880, 
and particularly after the fair of 1893, that it would have 
experienced difficulty in floating a vast public debt at any 
reasonable rate. Such a debt would have been hailed by 
investors everywhere as a desirable lodgment for surplus 
money. The Finance Minister was strongly and ener- 
getically opposed to every plan set on foot to induce the 
city to bond for any purpose. His position, declared on 
every available occasion, was that Chicago should pay as 
she went; should invite world-wide attention as the one 
great city without a large public debt; should conserve 
her credit by keeping it free from burden at least until 
events demonstrated beyond dispute just what position 
in the world municipalities she was destined to occupy, 
when she might desire at one great stroke to settle all 



102 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

question of rivalry and would have the most available as 
well as the most valuable financial standing with which 
to then attain her aim. 

When sent to Springfield on a special committee to 
secure legislative consent to bonding or issuing interest- 
bearing warrants for the purpose of adjusting the 
$7,000,000 of arrearage, he made no secret of his prefer- 
ence for a permit to issue the warrants for the amount, 
rather than one for bonding. The latter would create a 
bad precedent and a financial interest in keeping the city 
in debt for a source of income to investors. The war- 
rants would be negotiable and would be a kind of demand 
notes, whose existence would always act as a warning 
to economy and against further indebtedness. The Leg- 
islature refused to sanction bonding and legalized the 
issue of the warrants bearing interest, thus affording 
relief in a way every disinterested financier now admits 
was the best. 

The result of the Alderman's untiring efforts to finance 
Chicago through the spendthrift period of youth, by 
increasing its business and its taxable assets; by reduc- 
ing its extravagances and its outlay; by enlarging its 
opportunities and its credit, is plain now. The lakeside 
metropolis has more unincumbered assets than any other 
city in the world. It has more unburdened opportun- 
ities, and greater ability to either utilize them or realize 
on them. As a corporation it has the greatest potential- 
ity of all municipalities, because whatever it decides to 
do it has the power easily to do, having no debt impedi- 
ment. During the five years Mr. Madden acted as finan- 
cier for the city of Chicago, he not only practically led 
in shaping the legislation that made the place what it is, 



PUBLIC SERVANT 103 

but he superintended the collection of $125,000,000 of 
revenue for municipal uses, and personally controlled the 
expenditure of every dollar of that vast sum. His work 
shows that the city has assets to display for every shilling 
of the investment. 

When on March 22, 1897, with health nearly worn 
out by hard, long public service, he was compelled to 
announce physically enforced retirement from further 
Aldermanic labor, his valedictory aroused sentiment 
whose applause it took a long half hour to express. * ' When 
I entered this Council as a member," he said, 4t the city 
contained but thirty-seven square miles of territory. It 
now has 186. It then had 880,000 people. It has 2,000,- 
000 now. We have in eight years constructed 500 miles 
of new sidewalks, laid 61S miles of water mains, built 
814 miles of sewers, and paved 947 miles of new streets. 
We have erected 345 miles of buildings and spent on 
them $311,600,000. We have increased the water rev- 
enues from $1,621,786 to $3,716,835. We have by law 
abolished grade crossings on several hundred miles of 
railways, and have substituted the cable, the electric line 
and the elevated road for horse car service in the streets. 
We have now 392 miles of this improved transportation 
system in operation within the city limits. We have 
established civil service in the city, and all who do pub- 
lic work now do it for the tax-payers who pay their sal- 
aries and for no one else. We have secured the lake 
front forever to the people for park purposes and put 
the pleasure grounds for all time alongside the business 
streets. The city is at present spending $50,000,000 for 
the construction of a drainage canal that will both cleanse 
the town and secure for its population an unlimited and 



104 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

an indestructible supply of the best drinking water avail- 
able in any community in the world. We have at an 
expenditure of $30,000,000 built a White City that has 
made all mankind acquainted with the fact that here live 
the greatest city builders the human race has ever had. 
To-day the streets of Chicago have more of the rush and 
activity of modern life than have the thoroughfares of 
London. Into our city every twenty-four hours 1,500 
trains arrive and depart, and 200,000 strangers come and 
go. In eight years the permanent assets of our city have 
been increased from $24,000,000 in value to more than 
$56,000,000. We have more property belonging to the 
public now than we then had by an amount exceeding 
$32,000,000 at actual cost, and at real value by an amount 
exceeding $160,000,000. The city's credit is to-day the 
best possessed by any municipality on earth. Our prop- 
erty is the least encumbered and is the most available of 
any owned by cities. We owe practically less money 
than any other civic corporation. Our bonded debt, all 
told, is net but $11,670,000. Less than one-half our 
yearly revenue would pay all we owe. So that Chicago 
has the best borrowing power of any existing civic cor- 
poration, and she has the greatest power to achieve any 
great task her future ambition may decide on. Chicago 
is better founded, better started, and has more power for 
endurance and improvement in the race for municipal 
supremacy than any other place now inhabited by men, 
whatever claims and aspirations any other may put 
forth. " 



CHAPTER XII. 



ENTERTAINING WORLD'S FAIR GUESTS— A BATTLE FOR MORALITY- 
A GREAT SPEECH. 



IN 1 89 1 Mr. Madden was prevailed upon to be a candi- 
date for re-election to the Board of Aldermen for a 
second term of two years. He had two opponents, an 
Independent and a regular Democratic nominee. He was 
Chairman of the Councilmanic Committee for the Colum- 
bian Fair. During the campaign the Fair Directory sent 
into the ward and had circulated a request that the voters 
of all parties unite in keeping Mr. Madden in the Board. 
The Directors belonged to different political organiza- 
tions, and their circular contained the following: "While 
Mr. Madden has been a zealous guardian of the city's 
interests, he has also been an earnest and untiring advo- 
cate before the Council of all measures calculated to 
advance the interestsof the Exposition, and the Directors 
feel that they cannot spare his services for the next two 
years if it is possible to avoid it." 

The Evening Post, Democratic, published this appeal 
March 25, 1891, and said of it: "No higher tribute could 
be paid to a Chicago Alderman in this, the World's Fair, 
epoch in Chicago's history. In Alderman Madden'scase 
the tribute is well deserved. " He defeated his opponents 
by a plurality of 1,500 votes. 

During this period in Chicago's growth it was what 
everywhere was known as a "wide open town." There 

105 



106 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

was a state law in existence making it illegal to keep 
drinking saloons and all places of amusement of that 
kind open for the transaction of business after midnight 
unless the municipality specially legalized it. The inten- 
tion of this was in the direction of public morality. It 
placed the onus of extending license upon the communi- 
ties countenancing it, the theory being that even as large 
a city as Chicago would not legalize an "open town" 
except for some special "good reason," or upon demand 
of the public. The so-called sporting community of the 
city had never been able to secure the passage of an 
extending ordinance, nor had the people ever been able to 
get more than spasmodic efforts at enforcement of the 
law as it was. The whole problem remained at a stub- 
born hitch. There could hardly be a question that 
because of the scandal and immorality resulting from the 
openness of the city, the majority of the native citizens 
were in favor of the midnight law. But they could not 
get a majority of the Council to vote that way. because a 
majority of the wards were opposed to the law. It must be 
remembered that at this time something less than thirty 
per cent, of the population of Chicago were of native 
birth. As late as 1896 the school census showed that 
seventy and one-half per cent, of the people of Chicago 
were of foreign birth. Not only were these people 
accustomed to the use of spirituous liquors, but most of 
them looked upon this country as a land of the utmost 
liberty, and they resented any public interference with 
personal habits in the matter of drink. Then the foreign 
population congregated according to nationality, consti- 
tuting the larger number of people in most of the wards, 
the Americans living as a rule by themselves. As each 



PUBLIC SERVANT 10? 

of the thirty-four wards was entitled to two members in 
the city legislature, it will be seen what a difficult prob- 
lem was that of handling the temperance question 
through any legislation possible at that time. Neither 
party could do it, and public men who had personal 
ambitions to serve were easily persuaded to cater to the 
foreign and sporting vote. 

Mayor Washburne, Republican, realized the difficulty 
of the situation; but he also understood the impossibility 
of dealing with it as the " better element* ' desired him to 
do. The majority and popularity were unquestionably 
on the other side. 

After much thought over the whole question, whether 
it would be better to oppose the majority sentiment 
favoring freedom and enforce the state law, or fly in the 
face of the minority and legalize what the greater num- 
ber wanted continued, he at last decided upon the latter 
course. 

He prepared an ordinance permitting the keeping of 
saloons open in the city after midnight under certain 
restrictions. He did not take Mr. Madden into his con- 
fidence. He had 20,000 appointments under his absolute 
personal control. He could dismiss from the public 
service any policeman, any fireman, any clerk, any 
laborer, or any other of the one score thousand people in 
the city pay. Civil service tests and security of tenure 
in public place had not yet been introduced into the civic 
habits of the giant city. He saw each Alderman but the 
one from the Fourth Ward, separately, described the pro- 
posed ordinance, gave his reasons for desiring its passage, 
and in this way obtained a pledge of support for it from 
sixty-seven of them. Several asked before they gave 



108 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

their pledges: "How does Madden stand on it?" The 
oracular response, "Oh, Madden is all right," usually 
convinced the hearer that the Finance Committee's 
Chairman was to support the measure. 

When every vote in the Council had thus been secured 
but that of Madden, the Mayor called upon him, showed 
him the bill, and then said: " Before submitting the 
ordinance to the other members or introducing it, I 
thought it best to obtain your opinion on it as leader of 
the party in the Council. What do you think of it?" 

"I think it is bad as morals and bad as a party meas- 
ure," replied the Alderman. "The Republican party is 
not in favor of legalizing the vicious practice now in 
vogue, and it would be immoral to sanction it.'' 

"What would you do if such a measure should be 
introduced in the Council?" 

"As a Republican, I should do all in my power to 
induce the party majority in that body to repudiate the 
bill; and as a citizen strive with all my might to defeat 
it." 

"But sixty- seven members of the Board of Aldermen 
desire such an ordinance introduced, and have pledged 
themselves to support it. It is because of this general 
desire that it is proposed to introduce it at the next 
meeting. You wuold not place yourself in opposition to 
the expressed desire of every other member of the 
Council, would you?" 

"I certainly would on such a matter as this, because 
it is wrong. I would try to convince them of its wrong- 
fulness. ' ' 

"But when sixty-seven of the sixty-eight in the 
Council desire the measure, would it not be better to con- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 109 

fine your opposition to voting against it, and refrain from 
argument? That might simply set them in opposition to 
you, and impair your usefulness in the Board in the 
future. The thing is wanted by the whole Council. 
Why not let them have their way and vote without 
speaking?" 

44 That would be criminal. I should be bound to 
oppose the passage of such an ordinance with everything 
in my power and do all I could to persuade the other 
members against it. There is but one thing for a man 
in a legislative body to do, and that is to do right with 
all his might, at the right time, and all the time." 

44 Then you are determined to speak against such a 
measure if it should be introduced, as well as vote 
against it?" 

44 I am." 

44 I am sorry you take that attitude, because the ordi- 
nance is desired and it will pass by a vote of sixty-seven 
against one — you that one." 

44 Don't be too sure about that." 

Mr. Madden went to work among his colleagues, and 
when the all night ordinance was introduced he succeeded 
in preventing its passage by obtaining a tie vote. 

The Mayor was surprised and disgusted by this vote, 
44 but his surprise," said a daily paper, 44 was not equal to 
his anger, which, although well concealed, was boiling 
over at the action of Madden and some of those he had 
induced to oppose the measure. " What the Chief Execu- 
tive then did to renew the contest was fully described by 
the daily papers and reveals the extraordinary character 
of the political life of the city at that time. 44 The very 
men whom the Mayor had looked to for support failed 



110 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

him," said one paper; "he had been generous in his 
patronage to these very men, and his anger knew no 
bounds when he heard of their action. At two of them 
he was especially angry, for he had loaded them down 
with political favors and allowed them to draw on his 
resources to pay their political debts. He vowed he 
would not brook their opposition and would show them 
who was Mayor by cutting off their patronage. Yester- 
day afternoon and this morning the Mayor has been 
quietly at work getting the rebellious Aldermen around 
again to his way of thinking. This morning another con- 
ference was held and as a result the Aldermen who 
opposed the ordinance will now vote for it. They were 
simply given to understand that if they could not be with 
the Administration they could not expect any favors and 
that the favors that had already been granted them would 
be withdrawn. The threat was effective and the Alder- 
men became submissive. The ordinance will be sent in 
again and this time it will be passed." 

This was in the beginning of September, 1891. At 
the next meeting of the Council the bill was again intro- 
duced. An instructed man was in the chair. The meas- 
ure was no sooner read, the echo of the last word still in 
the air, than Mr. Madden was on his feet at his place 
with, "Mr. Chairman!" 

The Chairman nodded to him and automatically 
responded: "The gentleman from the Fourth Ward. " 
Before he could finish what he intended to say, like a 
shot there was hurled out a motion for the previous 
question. Now, such a motion, carried, absolutely cut 
off all debate, even a remark. There were sixty-seven 
votes ready to be plumped for the motion; not only 



PUBLIC SERVANT 111 

ready, but impatient. The impatience rapidly grew to 
fury when it was seen that Madden remained on his feet, 
pointing to the chair and continuing his call, "Mr. Chair- 
man !" He was white, but cool and calculating, with his 
whole head on his shoulders. 

A great cry arose all around him, and for a while 
there was a perfectly riotous denunciation of his appar- 
ent opposition to the wishes of the whole body. When 
the babel of "Vote!" i4 Vote!" "Question!" "Question!" 
finally took a breathing spell for a fresh start, the mem- 
ber from the Fourth was still erect. Seizing his oppor- 
tunity he sent out straight and clear the cry: "Mr. 
Chairman, the motion for the previous question is not in 
order!" That was the most astounding thing the other 
members thought instantly they had ever heard in that 
hall. A motion for the previous question, made as 
theirs had been, not in order! They looked at one 
another so amazed that silence overcame them, wonder- 
ing "What next!" 

"No, Mr. Chairman, the motion for the previous 
question is not in order, because you gave me the floor, 
and while I have it no motion is in order." 

This was a revelation to the whole house. Madden 's 
word was positively indisputable when given for a fact, 
to every member of that Council, and they knew he was 
faultless as a parliamentarian. Here he was saying the 
floor had been given to him. They had not seen that, 
and, as if by a common instinct, they held still to see 
how it was. 

The Alderman's action was quick. "Before the last 
word of that proposed measure had lost its sound, on my 
feet I addressed you in the words, 'Mr. Chairman/ and 



112 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

you responded, beckoning to me, 4 The gentleman from 
the Fourth Ward/ Did you not?" 

44 1 did," answered the Chairman. 

44 That recognition was a recognition of my desire 
to speak, and it legally gave me the floor for the purpose of 
saying what I had to say. It gave it before the first 
word of the motion for the previous question was uttered. ' ' 

He was right. The whole house instantly perceived 
it after the Chair's admission, and not a sound was now 
uttered from any other place. 

4 "Therefore," continued Madden, "the motion for the 
previous question is not in order. Neither that motion, 
nor any other motion, can be lawfully made while I have 
the floor, nor until I have finished what I have obtained 
the floor to say. I have not very much to say, and when 
I am through I will move the previous question, as it is 
very evident no one else desires to speak. It is plain 
all the other sixty-seven votes in this body are ready to 
be cast." 

There was not a man there who was not both relieved 
and glad over what was said. Madden 's service and 
character had been such that his bitterest opponent in 
the Council would have been sorry to find him in actual 
error, and every one of them would have sincerely regret- 
ted if his conduct in setting up against them had proven 
simply factious. He had never in the hall been either 
disputatious or wrong. He had always been right and 
always reasonable. He was both now. They would abso- 
lutely have applauded him, even in their opposition, such 
was made their humor in the quick comprehension of 
his attitude, but they were seized with an overpowering 
wish to hear what next he had to say. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 113 

He seemed to concentrate his powers of wit, expres- 
sion and character into a description of the night immor- 
ality, crime, violence, corruption and official shameless- 
ness that flaunted their evil upon the world as synony- 
mous of Chicago life. The story he told made many of 
even the most experienced of his auditors blush with 
shame for the government under which their children 
were going to school, and before the end of it the major- 
ity had begun to shrink from participation in any share 
of guilt for the infamy. When every eye was riveted 
upon him and every form bent his way, in manifest sym- 
pathy, he concluded: 

44 I have been told by the Chief Executive of the city 
that in this legislature, where the town laws are all 
made, the vote upon this bill is arranged to be sixty- seven 
to one in favor of its passage. Such a vote, if cast, will 
demonstrate to mankind that it is impossible to stop the 
evil dragging us all down, as the city legislature is prac- 
tically unanimous for its continuance. If you are all for 
it, why not let it alone? If you want it, you are certain 
of having it without taking any action at all. You cannot 
doubt that it will continue. The Administration could 
stop it by executing the present state law which forbids 
it. But the Administration will not execute the state law, 
because, like you, the Administration desires a continu- 
ance of the present condition. So you both want it. 
You both wish it to continue. You have the assurance 
that it will continue without any action on your part. 
The introduction of this ordinance by the Mayor shows 
that he is committed to continuance. There is, then, no 
need for any action on your part. You have what you 
want, and you have executive assurance that you will 

8 



114 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

continue to have it. Then why take any action? If you 
take the action proposed you gain nothing, but you 
assume responsibility which there is no reason for your 
taking and that will give you no gain. As things are the 
Mayor is solely responsible for the open dives. If you 
pass this ordinance you assume the responsibility which 
he now bears alone. He will then be free and you will 
carry the whole load, and you will gain nothing, for he 
is committed to carrying what there is no excuse for you 
to bear, except his desire to get rid^of it and to put it on 
your shoulders. You now have the condition you wish 
without blame, and you have assurance that it will con- 
tinue without any responsibility on your part. The 
Mayor desires the condition the same as you do, and, like 
yon, he wishes its continuance. But now he has the 
blame for it, and in the future he will have the responsi- 
bility. He wishes to escape both the present blame and 
the future responsibility. I ask you to refuse to accept 
either, there being no necessity for you to do it and noth- 
ing to be gained by you in doing it. Let both remain 
where they are now, upon the Mayor. Think how 
much better it will be to have but one man in this city 
responsible for these things, than to have the whole com- 
munity, through you sixty-seven gentlemen, committed 
to their continuance, when, if you like them, you are just 
as sure of having them without a single one of you being 
to blame. " 

Mr. Madden then moved the previous question and the 
ordinance was defeated by a majority of ten. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



REFUSES MAYORALTY THREE TIMES— NOMINATES RIVAL— SACRI- 
FICE FOR PURE BALLOT. 



IN 1S93 Mr. Madden accepted renomination. In this 
campaign he defeated his Democratic opponent by a 
majority of 2,000. 

The World's Fair was now about to open and the 
pressure of the work pertaining to it upon the officials 
responsible for the vast enterprise was appalling. Mr. 
Madden had during his past term in the Council been 
Chairman of the Aldermanic Fair Committee. He had 
had the direction of the legislation covering the city's 
relations to the enterprise, and it had been his task to see 
that all the transportation companies were impartially 
encouraged to extend their facilities to the grounds in 
every possible way without obtaining any permanent 
encroachment on popular rights. He had in the previous 
January been sent on a committee to Washington to 
obtain from Congress permission to have the Exposition 
open on Sunday, and was now elected Chairman of the 
.committee appointed to entertain the city's guests during 
the Fair. In this office he was obliged to arrange for the 
proper reception of all foreigners invited, both when they 
landed on American soil and when they reached Chicago; 
see that they were suitably entertained while in the city, 
and then superintend their departure. The social and 
the official characteristics of all nationalities had to be 

115 



116 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ascertained and constantly borne in mind during this 
work. Special programmes had to be studied out and 
carried through for the guests representing each different 
people. Some idea may be formed of the cosmopolitan 
character of the task from such facts as these: Day and 
evening entertainments were provided every day for five 
weeks for the eighty officers sent to represent the differ- 
ent navies of the Old World. Scrupulous adherence to 
Spanish royal etiquette had to be observed in receiving, 
entertaining and adieuing the Princess Eulalia and the 
Duke of Veragua, and this had to be nicely differentiated 
from the character of reception expected by the Lord 
Mayor of Dublin. Not only were distinguished guests 
from all foreign countries-^European, African and Asiatic 
— entertained in the manner they were accustomed to at 
home, but Americans from every state and country on 
the continent were also suitably received and treated. 
This work was constant, day and night, during the whole 
period of the Exposition — six months. Not one social 
"break" was made in it during all that time. All over 
the world the praises of Chicago as a model host were 
sounded. General Nelson A. Miles, Commander of the 
United States Army, served on Mr. Madden 's staff, to 
lend his aid to the proper entertainment of military 
guests, and men of similar standing and knowledge in 
other walks of life served to assist in the work of caring 
for other official visitors. It is said that every one of the 
scores of programmes made out by Madden during the 
Fair was correctly drawn up and followed out. 

After the Exposition had been open for a few weeks 
the attendance was found to be insufficient. Madden's 
financial talent was called upon for a remedy. He at 



PUBLIC SERVANT 117 

once devised the competition of the "Great Days." This 
allotted to each commonwealth in the Union a State Day 
at the Fair, and apportioned the remaining days to the 
larger cities, setting aside the Fourth of July as the 
Nation's Fete Day. The plan incited intense rivalry in 
attendance between the states, and afterwards among the 
cities, and filled the grounds and saved the show. The 
rivalry between New York City and Chicago was phe- 
nomenal, and assembled the two largest crowds ever 
gathered at any exhibition in the history of the world. 

The Chairman of the Entertainment Committee did 
not spend many hours in repose while the Columbian 
Fair was open. He has said that the hardest work he 
ever did was done in that six months. 

Mr. Carter H. Harrison, Mayor of Chicago, was 
assassinated on Oct. 28, 1893. The Columbian Exposition 
was at the very height of its popularity, and the tragedy 
produced intense excitement. There was no clear legal 
provision in the city's charter arranging for an immediate 
succession. It was very unfortunate that this was so, for 
never in the history of the city had it been more neces- 
sary to have the government continuously conducted. 
When the lawyers, who were called on for advice, 
divided on the question as to whether the Chairman pro 
tern, of the Board of Aldermen automatically succeeded 
to the powers of the office until a new Mayor could be 
elected, or whether the Board had the power to elect one 
of its members to assume the temporary duties, the situ- 
ation became threatening. Then the citizens realized 
how fortunate the municipality was in the .character of 
the men who were leaders in the local legislative body. 



lib MARTIN B. MADDEN 

These men held the government well in hand and pre- 
vented anarchy. 

Mayor Harrison had been elected on the first of the 
preceding April for a term of two years. The charter 
plainly called for a new election when the office became 
vacant during the first year of the term, but it made no 
provision at all for a vacancy caused by death. It 
simply enacted that when a vacancy in the office occurred 
during the first year a new election should be had to fill 
the office, without specifying when it should be called. 
As elections could not be ordered without thirty days 
notice to the electors, the conditions placed the situation 
under the control of the Aldermen. They could, appar- 
ently, postpone action to suit themselves, and if they 
decided they had the power to fill the office for the time, 
they could put into the Mayor's chair one of their own 
members and keep him there an indefinite period. 

The Council at the time was composed of thirty-eight 
Republicans and thirty Democrats. As party leader 
in the city and Chairman of the Republican City Central 
Committee, Mr Madden had done more than any other 
citizen to effect the change in the town's politics which 
had resulted in Republican control of its legislation. The 
Democrats felt that the office of Mayor belonged of right 
to their party, as Mr Harrison was a Democrat, and when 
he died had left eighteen months unexpired of the term 
which the voters had entrusted the party to fill. The 
disposition was to resist by every art of filibustering any 
attempt of the majority in the Board of Aldermen to 
take advantage of their numerical strength, A caucus was 
held at the city hall to agree on a line of action. The 
spokesman designated to announce the result said: "We 



PUBLIC SERVANT 119 

would be satisfied with Alderman Madden as Mayor pro 
tern, if the Republicans take advantage of their power to 
elect one, but with no other man in his party in the 
Board. We would overlook the straining of the law on 
the part of the Councillors, if they select Mr. Madden. 
He has been agreed upon by the Democrats as the only 
acceptable Republican Alderman for the filling of the 
vacant office until an election can be held. No other 
man in the Council possesses his qualifications for the 
office of Mayor. He can secure the co-operation of the 
Council, which is Republican, with the present heads of 
the departments in the city government, all of whom are 
Democrats. He is better acquainted with the finances of 
the city than any other person connected with municipal 
affairs, not even excepting the Comptroller, who is a 
Democrat. Mr. Madden has never allowed himself to be 
swayed by partisan considerations in the discharge of his 
duties as Alderman. For that reason the Democrats in 
the Council, as well as the heads of departments, are dis- 
posed to gracefully acquiesce in his rule and support and 
co-operate with him if his party elect him to fill Mr. Har- 
rison's place, although we realize that if Mr. Madden 
takes the place pro tern, it will make him the next Mayor 
by election. " The caucus nominated Mr. John McGillen, 
the Chairman of their City Central Committee and a 
member of the Board, to be their Aldermanic candidate 
for Mayor pro tern, in case the majority concluded to 
attempt a selection. 

The Republicans, as well as their Democratic cor- 
leagues, in the Council were divided on the legal aspects 
of the problem. Mr. Madden was the leader of the 
Republicans in the Board. His party in the city had been 



120 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

for a long time practically committed to him as the next 
Republican candidate for the office of Mayor He was 
pressed to take it now by Aldermanic election. He hesi- 
tated to do that, because he doubted the Council's right 
to choose. Ex-Commissioner of Public Works, George B. 
Swift, another important member of the Board, and a 
leader whose Republican following had been urging him 
forward as a Mayoralty candidate, had no doubts as to 
the Council's right to put a successor to Mr. Harrison in 
the Executive office. He not only believed the Board 
had the right to do this, but he publicly advocated the 
immediate doing of it to preserve the continuity of the 
administration of civic affairs. The result of his agita- 
tion was that the Council concluded to elect a Mayor pro 
tem., the citizens manifesting a disposition to endorse the 
act. 

When the Council met, therefore, on the Saturday 
following the assassination, Nov 4, 1893, two resolutions 
were introduced and passed. One called tor a popular 
election of Mayor on the 19th of December following, 
and the other for an immediate election from among the 
members of the Board of a Mayor pro tem. by ballot. The 
Democrats nominated Alderman John McGillen and the 
Republicans, on the motion of Mr. Madden, put up Alder- 
man Swift. When the ballots were counted the report - 
. ing teller said: 44 Mr. Chairman, we find that there were 
cast in all sixty-eighc votes. Of these Swift received 
thirty-four, McGillen thirty-three, and one was blank. " 

For a moment there was a breathless silence. If the 
teller had not used the word sixty-eight, but had reported 
sixty-seven ballots cast, Mr. Swift would have been 
declared elected. Counting the blank deposited as a vote 



PUBLIC SERVANT 121 

cast, arrayed thirty-four votes against the Republican 
candidate. The chair was occupied by Mr. McGillen, 
who instantly perceived his party's opportunity. He 
quickly declared there was no election, as neither candi- 
date had received a majority of the sixty-eight votes 
polled. This decision provoked a row that eventually 
degenerated into a riot. The trouble was kept up all 
day. The Republicans sided with Swift and made his 
cause theirs. But he did not succeed in changing the 
result. The unfairness of the decision against him, how- 
ever, produced such an effect on the people that there was 
an unmistakable popular demand for its withdrawal. On 
the following Monday evening the Democrats in the 
Council retreated from their previous position and per- 
mitted Mr. Swift to be elected Mayor pro tern. He 
qualified on November 9th, assumed the office on the 
10th, and served until December 29th. 

Mr. Madden at once declined to allow his name to be 
put forward as the Republican nominee for the December 
election. He insisted that Mr. Swift, by the unfair action 
of the Democrats in the Council, had been made the 
party's logical candidate- Under no circumstances, he 
said, would he permit the use of his own name in the 
conditions existing at the time. The decision discon- 
certed many of the Finance Chairman's party adherents. 
They were absolutely sure of being able to elect him to 
the chief office in the city, because of his general popu- 
larity and the widespread desire to have at the official 
head of municipal affairs just such a man as his public 
conduct had shown him to be. They had calculated to 
run him at the end of Mayor Harrison's term, when it 
expired on March 31, 1895, an( i had no doubt of their 



122 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ability to elect him against even Harrison himself. Now 
that the opportunity was presented of putting him up 
against a weaker man, they were sorely disappointed at 
his refusal to enter the race. "Don't you want the 
office?" he was asked. " You may have it for the trouble 
of reaching out for it. " 

"Yes, I would like to be Mayor of Chicago, " he 
answered, "and I believe that I would be elected if I 
should be nominated. But the nomination belongs to 
Mr. Swift by right. I could not take it. That would be 
countenancing what our party has pronounced fraud 
against Mr. Swift. Let us all turn in and elect him and 
in that way punish and stamp out unfair politics. " 

At the Republican Convention, held on December 2d, 
Mr. Madden, as party leader, presided. When he called 
the body to order he named Mr. Swift as the man who 
was to be nominated, and urged the party to do all in its 
power to elect him, and thus place itself on record as the 
party of fair dealing in city affairs. Mr. Swift was nom- 
inated. The Democrats named as his opponent John P. 
Hopkins. When the ballots were counted, on the night 
of December 19th, the contest was found to have been 
close, and the count resulted in the declaration that the 
Democratic candidate had been chosen to fill out Mr. 
Harrison's term by a majority of 1,100. He took office 
on December 29, 1893. 

The result was not only disappointing, it was irritat- 
ing, to the majority of Republicans in the city. It was 
now generally believed by them that Madden would 
easily have defeated Hopkins. When the latter assumed 
office he did not gain in popularity. He rapidly lost 
because of his palpable political use of his place. The 



PUBLIC SERVANT 123 

Madden movement was revived and gained strength until, 
during the summer and fall of 1894, it was taken for 
granted that he would be his party's nominee in the 
spring of 1895, and be elected by a great majority, no 
matter who ran against him, but especially if Mr. Hop- 
kins should oppose him. Mr. Madden did not hesitate to 
allow the use of his name, and he did all he honorably 
could to further the movement in his interest. He made 
no concealment of his willingness to be Mayor of Chi- 
cago, and never hesitated to declare the policy he would 
adopt and carry out if elected. Every such declaration 
he made added to his popularity and political strength. 

The friends of Mr. Swift refused from the beginning 
to accept Mr. Hopkins's election as honestly obtained. 
They pointed out evidences of fraud in the count and 
went to work intelligently and systematically to unearth 
the criminality. Republicans outside the immediate 
circle of his friends regarded these efforts for a long time 
with impatience as the work of indiscreet party men to 
keep a discredited candidate before the public as a legacy 
upon the party's fidelity. The Swift men, however, per- 
sisted in their endeavors. By December, 1894, they had 
made out a complete case, and were able to convince the 
public that Mr. Swift had carried the election the year 
before by a substantial majority. 

At this time the Republicans were busily preparing 
for their nominating convention, which was to be held in 
February, to name their city ticket for the Mayoralty 
election in April. There was no serious talk of anyone 
to head the ticket but Mr. Madden. He had become 
interested in the Swift investigation. When he learned 
of the disclosures his colleague in the Council was pre- 



124 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

pared to make, he carefully examined into the whole 
case. He concluded from discoveries he made that 
Swift had beaten Hopkins by about 4,000 majority, and 
had been counted out of the office of Mayor of Chicago. 
At once he determined to do all in his power to rectify 
the wrong. He realized that there was no redress at 
law for Mr. Swift, as Hopkins could delay any proceed- 
ings towards ousting beyond the remaining duration of 
his term. 

The Forty Club, a social political organization in the 
city, had invited Mr. Madden to address it at a banquet 
to be given on the evening of December 20th. He had 
accepted the invitation, and as the time approached he 
made up his mind to use the opportunity for making pub- 
lic his discoveries in the Hopkins-Swift case. The news- 
papers carefully reported the entertainments at the club, 
and would afford a vehicle for the publication of what he 
might have to say. 

The evening came and the guests and the reporters. 
At the dinner the toastmaster at length proposed "The 
health of Martin B. Madden, the next Mayor of Chicago. " 

When the cheers greeting him as he arose had ceased, 
Mr. Madden thanked his hosts for their welcome and 
their wishes, and then said: "Much as 1 might like to be 
the Chief Magistrate of this great city, I am compelled to 
announce to you, gentlemen, that I shall not be the next 
Mayor of Chicago. It is my. duty to make a Christmas 
present of the Republican nomination for that office, 
which this year will be the certainty of election to it, to 
the Hon. George B. Swift" 

The auditors were spell-bound. They could not real- 
ize for a few moments that they had heard aright. Mr. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 125 

Madden then told them of what had been ascertained by 
the Swift investigation. These discoveries, he said, made 
it the duty of every good Republican, as well as every 
good citizen, of Chicago to do the utmost in his power to 
publicly condemn the crime that had robbed Mr. Swift 
of the office and the honor the public had conferred upon 
him. The sacredest thing in American public life was 
the integrity of the ballot. Every institution in the 
country every phase of its legal, political and national 
life, depended for its welfare upon the -quality of the 
suffrage. To attack the purity of the ballot was to 
poison American life at its very source. It was the 
worst of all public crimes and the most far-reaching. It 
was so abhorrent that no citizen should rest a moment 
when action could either punish it or prevent it. In the 
present case every sacrifice should be made to repair the 
wrong done, as well as to put the seal of public con- 
demnation upon the crime. The best way to do both was 
to again nominate Mr Swift for the Mayoralty, and then 
elect him by such a large majority that no corruption 
could overcome it. The result would vindicate the 
injured man in the only way vindication could at all make 
amends, and it would* at the same time warn the crim- 
inals in the only way public condemnation could affect 
them. 

This speech profoundly moved the club and as pro- 
foundly stirred the public when spread before it next 
day. Mr Madden followed his oral declaration by a 
card to the people. In this he announced his retirement 
from the candidacy as a protest against fraud at the bal- 
lot box and as an act of possible reparation for Mr. Swift. 

In this remarkable case there was not the smallest 



126 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

opportunity for any kind of doubt that a man was sacri- 
ficing a great post for a principle. The candidate retir- 
ing had a certainty of success by a phenomenal majority. 
His act was an absolute presentation of the office of 
Mayor of Chicago, by a man as ambitious to have it as 
any man could be, to a political rival he believed entitled 
to it as an act of justice, but who might not receive the 
gift, much as be desired it, with any feeling of gratitude. 
Such donations have provoked enmity of the most injuri- 
ous and lasting nature in the history of the human race. 

"He won't thank you for it. He will resent your act 
as an effort to detract from his ability to get the office 
without your assistance,' ' was said by an influential 
Republican leader. 

44 1 can't help what Mr. Swift does about my con- 
duct/' answered Madden; tl all I know is I have been a 
candidate for a nomination that belongs to him. When 
I found out that he was entitled to what I was after, 
there was nothing for me to do but at once stop my pur- 
suit. What he may think about my conduct has nothing 
whatever to do with it. It was not regulated by his 
thoughts, but by my own. I thought I had no right to 
the nomination, and that he had every right to it. That 
being so, what else could I do but what I have done?" 

"Yes, but you are a stronger candidate than Mr. 
Swift is. Your election was certain. His is not. It 
would be better for the city to have Republican govern- 
ment. Your nomination would have insured that. His 
does not insure it. Your retirement jeopards Republican 
success. It is an injury to the party and to the city, too; 
a greater injury than has been done to Swift." 

"The injury to Swift," answered the Alderman, 44 is 



PUBLIC SERVANT L27 

the minor consideration in the affair. B5 r all means it 
should be repaired, as it can be, by nominating him 
again. The main thing is the outrage on the suffrage. 
If Hopkins be renominated, his contest will be one for 
endorsement of the alleged false count. His defeat by 
the victim of that count will be the only possible kind of 
defeat that will be unmistakably a public condemnation 
of the crime charged. A defeat by any other candidate, 
myself, say, might be ascribed to many other causes 
than a public desire to punish offense against the purity 
of the ballot. A defeat by Swift cannot be ascribed to 
anything else than such public desire. It is essential that 
Swift be the Republican nominee, not because he is 
Swift, but because he alone personifies the cause for 
which the party must make the fight — the integrity of 
the ballot. That is the whole issue. ' w 

The retirement of Mr. Madden concentrated public 
attention upon the ballot question and made certain Mr. 
Swift's nomination without opposition. 

The Republican Convention was held on Feb. 21, 
1895. As Chairman of the Party Central Committee, Mr. 
Madden presided. To make the position he had assumed 
and had concluded to continue clear beyond cavil, he had 
gone into the convention with 325 of the 545 delegates 
entitled to vote on the nominations at his back — a major- 
ity of eighty-five. For the third time he placed Mr. 
Swift in nomination for the office of Mayor of Chicago, 
and in a powerful speech stated his claims and urged 
united action in his support. The nomination was 
accorded by a unanimous vote. 

The magnanimity of the political conduct of the Alder- 
man from the Fourth Ward in this whole episode was so 



128 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

decidedly in the interests of the public that the citizens 
rallied to the support of the Republican ticket at once. 
The indications of popular support were so unmistakable 
that the Democrats decided not to meet the issue that 
would assuredly result from the renomination of Mr. 
Hopkins. They attempted to escape by putting up as 
their candidate a new man, who had not been identified 
in any way with the election scandal, and they nomi- 
nated Mr. Frank Wenter. He was so decisively defeated, 
the majority against him being 40,000, that there was 
no attempt at false counting. 

In that campaign Mr. Madden stumped the entire city 
for Swift, making several speeches each night, and doing 
managerial campaign work during the day. He con- 
tributed towards the success of the ticket more, perhaps, 
than any other one man. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



MEETS UNPARALLELED ABUSE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE — ELOQUENT 
PARLIAMENTARY SPEECH. 



THE most dangerous strike that ever threatened the 
safety of a large city in the United States was the 
Debs outbreak in Chicago in the spring of 1894. The 
grievances leading to it lay in those economic differences 
of opinion regarding wages and hours of work, which are 
characteristic of the unsettled and unscientific relations 
existing in all modern civilization between capital and 
labor. The trouble would probably have been early 
adjusted in ordinary times. But the period was full of 
troublesome elements. The panic in the manufacturing 
trade, precipitated by the change in the tariff laws in 
1893, had thrown several million men out of employment. 
These included not only the skilled and unskilled laborers 
who had been engaged in the closed factories, but hun- 
dreds of thousands of others who had now nothing to do 
because of the stoppage in the business of transporting 
raw material to the shops and finished products away 
for distribution. The Columbian Exposition had attracted 
scores of thousands of the idle to Chicago, where for the 
brief period of six months they had found some means 
of living. The Fair over, the city was swarming with 
stranded and desperate men. The general industrial sit- 
uation grew worse as the winter advanced, and by the 
middle of spring the western metropolis seethed with 
9 129 



130 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

social discontent and the breedings of anarchy. For 
every bit of employment that would yield even bread 
there were many desperate applicants. Tens of thou- 
sands of strong men never thought of being able to earn 
both food and bed ; they slept on the grass in the parks 
and on the turf between the walks and curbs. It was all 
many employers could do to find business sufficient to 
run their establishments enough hours every day to keep 
the machinery from rusting. In such a time to seek 
increase of wages was considered insane, and to resist 
any reduction meant tramping. Nothing but an indus- 
trial explosion could, it seemed, prevent a revolution. 
The Debs railway men's strike brought the explosion. 
It prevented formal attempt at revolutionary measures 
by giving anarchy other vents. During the progress of 
the strike there was discovered, just in time to prevent 
its execution, a conspiracy to destroy the city by a con- 
flagration to be started in many widely separated locali- 
ties simultaneously. 

Alderman Madden, as Chairman of the Republican 
Central Committee, had thoroughly traversed the town ; 
as a life-long associate, friend and employer of working- 
men, his attention everywhere was directed to what was 
going on and what was threatened. When he became 
convinced that precautionary measures energetically 
taken on a vast scale would alone prevent the destruction 
of the city, he called upon the Mayor and Chief of Police 
and advised them about the whole situation. Both 
seemed astonished and would not believe the facts for 
some time. At length, however, the city government 
arranged to increase the police force by 320 patrolmen 
and about 500 substitutes. The Alderman agreed to have 



PUBLIC SERVANT 131 

the City Council appropriate money for these extra men 
during the emergency. 

When the strike was at its worst the merchants and 
tax-payers petitioned the Federal Government to come in 
and save the city, as the state and local authorities were 
totally unable to do it. President Cleveland found occa- 
sion to interfere, in the conduct of the strikers stopping 
the movement of trains hauling United States mail 
through the town. In the name of all the people of the 
country he sent troops to protect the passage of the 
mails, and he sent enough to suppress the whole trouble. 

By September the strike was over. The general 
condition of the city was then much better than before. 
The Federal soldiers had scared away from the entire 
locality most of the dangerous temporary population. 
When the City Council then voted $90,000 as a special 
appropriation to pay the extra policemen their dues, it 
passed an order, on Mr. Madden's motion, to reduce the 
police expenditures by dismissing the 320 extra officers. 
The Mayor by law had the right to veto any order passed 
by the Council, and his veto could not be overcome except 
by a two-thirds councilmanic vote. He vetoed this 
order, giving as a reason that any action by the Council 
ordering a reduction of the police force was an interfer- 
ence with the prerogative belonging solely to the Chief 
Executive. The Republicans in the Council had but 
thirty-seven votes, and as the Democrats in the Board 
stood united by the Mayor, the veto could not be overrid- 
den. The issue was then joined and it raised perhaps the 
worst, the most prolonged, and the most scandalous leg- 
islative storm that ever excited the people of the city, 
for they all took part in it before it was over. , * 



132 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

- The management of the contest in the Board against 
the Mayor fell upon the Alderman from the Fourth Ward, 
as leader of the majority and Chairman of the Finance 
Committee. As matters developed he gradually appeared 
to be alone in the fight. It was not thought he either 
could or would maintain his position. The people were 
unquestionably with the police, arid the police to a man 
were with the Mayor. He was a candidate for renomi- 
nation in the coming spring, and at the time the struggle 
was begun Mr. Madden was the only man thought of by 
the Republicans as their Mayoralty nominee. , The people 
of the city were much dissatisfied with the Democratic 
management of municipal affairs and the majority of 
them had been looking to the Finance Chairman to lead in 
the fight for the Mayor's overthrow. 

The Alderman's attitude produced much bitterness all 
around. Many accused him openly of throwing the 
election away in advance by playing straight into the 
Mayor's hands. If Mr. Madden had been a politician 
he would have at once yielded. Even an ordinary hon- 
est man might have felt compelled to do that under the 
circumstances. But the member from the Fourth was 
not a politician. He was a citizen and a business man 
acting in a representative capacity for the citizens of his 
own ward and, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, 
for all the people of the town. In his mind it was per- 
fectly clear that the Mayor had no right to the 320 police- 
men and that the Council, therefore, had no right to pay 
out public money for their salaries. It was the Board's 
duty to refuse the money and secure the dismissal of the 
men. As leader of the Council and head of its Finance 
Committee it was his duty to see that both were done. 



PUBLIC SERVANT tt'Z 

That was all there was to it. He set himself to the task 
without any regard to the results to himself. 

He asked his colleagues to vote down the veto. They 
refused to do it. The Mayor kept the men. They were 
assured of their salaries. 

In October the question of the salaries again came 
before the Council. Mr. Madden refused the money and 
had another order passed demanding that the Chief of 
Police reduce his force. The Mayor vetoed this as he 
had the other. 

The same thing was done in November and again in 
December. 

As soon as it was found that the September salaries 
for the new men would not be paid by the Finance Com- 
mittee, the Chief of Police, in order to keep them, ordered 
that every man on the force be allotted a vacation of ten 
days without pay. The money thus saved he used to 
pay the extra men, without exceeding the regular appro- 
priation for police purposes, which was in the Comp- 
troller's hands and subject to monthly drafts made by 
the Chief. Mr. Madden having ordered the Comptroller 
not to allow the regular appropriations to be overdrawn, 
the department had no way of raising money to pay the 
unappropriated salaries but that of curtailing expenses, 
and the reduction of ten days' pay per man on vacation 
account produced what was wanted. 

The victory was now, to all appearances, so decidedly in 
favor of the Administration that the disheartened Repub- 
lican voters, seeing the prospective control of the city gov- 
ernment slipping from their grasp, besought, then tried to 
coerce, and finally attempted to destroy the Alderman as 
party leader. Through the press they denounced him in 



134 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

violent language and demanded that he cease attempting 
to act as Mayor of the town and permit the actual officer 
to manage civic affairs. One of the papers accused him 
of having sold the party out to the Mayor for a consider- 
ation. Some of the district leaders spread the report 
that he had really deserted the party and was carrying 
out an agreement to make the Mayor's renomination and 
election inevitable by keeping him on the popular side 
and drawing public odium on the Republicans. News- 
papers called him a self-appointed czar, dictator and 
tyrant. They openly charged him with corruption. One 
went so far as to say he had used his position in the 
Council to play the Republican party into the Mayor's 
hands for influence in the department of public works for 
the purpose of making money by unloading upon the city 
inferior stone from the quarries he managed. This story 
contained the circumstantial allegation that he had got 
the city to buy from him $2,500,000 worth of material at 
an enormous profit. Prominent editors called attention 
to the Alderman's happy financial circumstances, and 
suggestively asked how it was that he had increased his 
wealth so rapidly since he had become leader in the 
Council. Every franchise ordinance that had been 
obtained from the Board of Aldermen was attributed to 
his alleged cupidity. The " boodle" bills that were 
passed during his absence were said to have been engi- 
neered by him, and it was hinted that he took considera- 
tion for being away to facilitate their enactment. There 
was not one newspaper on his side. The columns of 
every one of them were open to every species of attack 
upon him and closed to all defense. 

Then the police were set upon him. The roll at this 



PUBLIC SERVANT 135 

time had upon it the names of nearly 4,000 men. Every- 
one of them was working at reduced pay, and believed 
Madden was the sole cause of it. The entire force were 
inspired to act as detectives upon his whole career and 
spies upon his everyday movements, and to try to drive 
him out of public life by scattering and exaggerating 
everything they could dig up possible to use in the work 
of inflaming the public mind against him. 

One day a delegation of carefully picked men from 
the police department waited upon the Alderman in his 
private office to ask him to alter his attitude. Their 
language was so uncivil and their threats so open and 
insulting that it became impossible to discuss the ques- 
tion with them, and they were on the point of being 
ordered out, when they revealed the fact that they had a 
memorial with them. This was a formidable document. 
It was signed by a majority of the large business firms 
in the city and petitioned the Chairman of the Finance 
Committee to cease his attempts to cut down the police 
force, because the town needed it all for patrolling pur- 
poses; and to stop compelling the men to work for les- 
sened pay, as it diminished their spirit and demoralized 
their service. It was too evident that the signers of this 
concoction had either not read it or were ignorant of the 
actual state of affairs, and Mr. Madden felt it to be his 
duty to talk to the deputation. 

He began by telling them that he was personally 
acquainted with everyone of the signers, and that he 
knew perfectly well that when they put their names to 
that paper they did it knowing he would do the right 
thing, whether that was to desist from his opposition to 
the Mayor or continue it. Then he pointed out that the 



136 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Mayor's conduct in forcibly docking the salaries of the 
men on the force was an act of pure despotism without 
any justification whatever, and done to illegally swell 
out the Administration's patronage at the financial 
expense of the regular policemen. Each man's salary 
was fixed by law and could not be reduced by the Mayor 
without committing an act of extortion. Ten days' pay 
had been forced from each man for no purpose but that 
of finding money to hire new men illegally. The regular 
men had to submit to this or lose their places. The 
Council was trying to befriend the old policemen; it was 
the Administration that was oppressing them. The 
deputation went away with new light and it opened their 
minds. 

Then the city's great editor called and wished to know 
why the Alderman 44 carried on" as he was doing. 44 Mr. 
Medill, ,, he answered, "if you entrusted me with the 
financial management of your paper during a period when 
you could not personally be appealed to, the most effect- 
ive way you could equip me to protect your interests 
would be that of entrusting me with the giving out of the 
checks for the expenses authorized to be incurred for the 
establishment, wouldn't it?" 

"Yes," replied the editor. 

44 Well, then, it would be my duty to refuse to give 
any out for unauthorized and unnecessary bills?" 

44 It certainly would." 

4 'These 320* policemen were put on the force for the 
specified period of two months, or longer if the strike 
continued beyond that time. An appropriation to cover 
that special and specified expense was made. The strike 
is over and the appropriation is exhausted. The term 



PUBLIC SERVANT 137 

for which the extr# policemen were engaged has expired, 
and they are no longer legally in the city's employ, nor 
is there any necessity for hiring them. I am Chairman 
of the city's Finance Committee and may be said to have 
the giving out of the checks. All I have been author- 
ized to give out for the extra police service have been 
paid out. What right have I to pay out any more?'' 

"None whatever," replied Mr. Medill. "I am with 
you on that proposition. But your attitude has been 
misunderstood. The Tribune will try to remove the 
misapprehension." It did and was effective. 

Then public sentiment began to change by enlighten- 
ment. The police on the regular force found nothing in 
Mr. Madden's career that could be twisted into con- 
demnation, and the men were not long in changing 
about in their view of him. From being the greatest 
engine of persecution ever set against one man in public 
life, the force became as a whole his strongest supporter 
and most efficient agent in vindication. 

No man in the Board of Aldermen was for one moment 
deceived by any of all the slander. They all knew that 
their colleague had a record beyond reproach. He had 
never sold any stone to the city, not a dollar's worth; 
had never been personally interested in any franchise 
given or ordinance passed ; had never once supported or 
voted for any measure not perfectly clean; had never 
absented himself from a session possible for him to 
attend; and had been such a powerful foe to all kinds of 
vicious bills that most of those that ever passed had been 
suddenly introduced and rushed through when it was 
found he would be away. In the Council whatever 
opposition existed against him was either that of party 



138 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

policy or party expediency. His Republican colleagues 
stood nobly by their duty as he pointed it out, and grad- 
ually solidified themselves into a majority always sup- 
porting him. 

But the Mayor kept the police. His success in retain- 
ing them in spite of the Alderman's persistent attempts 
to have them dropped still continued to fool a majority 
of the taxpayers. They thought the Administration was 
engaged in a desperate effort to save the regular force of 
patrolmen from being reduced. With the memory of 
the awful days of the strike still fresh, this looked like a 
noble action in the public interest. On the other hand 
it seemed as if the Alderman was trying to cripple the 
Administration by cutting down its police revenue, so that 
it could not have the thoroughfares sufficiently guarded. 
It was necessary, a mind like Mr. Madden's reasoned, 
to defeat the Executive in a way that would completely 
expose the entire situation to every tax-payer's compre- 
hension. The difficulty of obtaining or of creating an 
opportunity to do this successfully was great. The 
Mayor would hardly risk taking any action that would 
let it appear he was trying to increase the force ; it was 
more probable he would remain inactive, trusting that 
any action the majority in the Council might take would 
continue to be in the direction of dismissing the extra 
men. That would always look to the people like effort 
to decrease the police force and cut down the patrolling 
of the streets. 

The Alderman never failed to use all his opportunities 
among his party brethren in the Council for the spread 
of the arguments buttressing his position. When the 
first of the New Year approached, he pointed out to 



PUBLIC SERVANT 139 

them that the entire fund obtained by the Chief of Police 
by the vacation reduction of pay would be exhausted 
early in January. . Then it would be necessary to find 
new means of meeting the salaries of the extra officers, 
and a crisis might be looked for. The Republican vote 
in the Council was kept in full attendance. 

At one of the sessions in January Alderman Gallagher, 
acting for the Executive, to every one's astonishment 
offered an ordinance instructing the heads of departments 
to ignore the repeated monthly orders of the Board to 
keep expenditures within the regular appropriations. 
At most other times the proposed ordinance would have 
been looked upon as innocent enough and attracted no 
especial notice. But with observation strained over 
every Executive act, it was perceived instantly that here 
was at last an attempt on the Mayor's part to take the 
initiative for securing legality for the surreptitious 
increase of the police force. If the Gallagher ordinance 
were passed, all the previous orders to dismiss the new 
men would be nullified. They might then be retained 
and an expectation be founded that the Council would 
make a new appropriation for their pay. It looked as if 
the Mayor had concluded that public opinion was now 
sufficiently aroused in favor of his conduct to warrant 
belief that it would change the Council's attitude. 

In an instant Alderman Madden was on his feet. He 
had just what he desired and had waited for nearly five 
months. It was an opportunity to effectively bare the 
whole conspiracy, and at the same time have the Mayor's 
entire action officially declared illegal. Realizing that 
what he now might say would be spread before every 
reader in Chicago next day, he was spurred into one of 



140 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

those compact, complete, carrying orations which so often 
distinguished his legislative career. He moved that the 
Gallagher resolution be placed on file and the action of 
the Finance Committee, in its January and other notices 
to the police department to keep its expenditures within 
the regular appropriation, be concurred in. He pointed 
out that by placing it on file the Mayor's motion would 
be practically shelved until the majority chose to take it 
off file, and that by voting to concur in the Finance Com- 
mittee's action the Council would officially legalize it 
without having the committee bring it before the body 
in the usual form of a report. A report that the com- 
mittee had ordered the Chief of Police to discharge the 
extra men, if brought in and approved by the Council, 
would become an order. This the Mayor could veto, 
and as there were not enough Republican votes in the 
Board to sustain the order over the veto, the whole ques- 
tion would remain open as before. But as the Mayor 
had himself brought the entire subject before the Council 
by the Gallagher resolution to instruct the heads of 
departments to ignore the Finance Committee's order, 
the passage of the motion to concur in that committee's 
action, and at the same time file, would legalrze the order 
to retrench as well as declare the Mayor's retention of 
the extra police unlawful, without passing an order or 
doing anything else that the Mayor could veto, or reach 
by any Executive action, The proceeding would result 
in making the defeat of the Mayor simply a matter of 
record, and he could in no way interfere with that. By 
asking the Council to instruct the departments to ignore 
its previous orders to keep expenditures within the 
appropriations, the Mayor was petitioning the Board to 



PUBLIC SERVANT 141 

rescind its several commands to the Police Department 
to dismiss the men for whose retention there was no 
appropriation. The request was one to legalize the 
keeping of the extra men. The mere making of such an 
application was an Executive admission that the reten- 
tion of these officers was not yet legal and that they had 
been kept on the force for five months unlawfully. The 
refusal of the request would have to be accepted as con- 
clusive proof .that the further keeping of them would be 
illegal and would cause their instant dismissal. How 
came these men on the pay roll? The speaker had him- 
self brought it about. He had directed the attention of 
the Administration to the danger of the impending riots 
before the trouble broke out, and had urged increased 
patrol. He had undertaken to have the Council make 
a special appropriation to cover the emergency, and that 
action alone had made it possible to temporarily increase 
the force. The Council's action had created the 320 
extra offices for the Police Department to fill. They were 
created for the specified period of two months, and 
became void at the expiration of that time. No execu- 
tive power, or any other power than that of the Board of 
Aldermen, could rightfully extend the duration of any 
one of these offices one day beyond that period. No 
power but the legislative power of the Board could add 
one official place to the pay roll or take one away. The 
Council every year fixed the number of policemen to 
be employed by the city, and fixed the particular salary 
each one of them was to get, from the Chief down. 
The pay of every officer was specified by law, belonged 
to him by law, and could neither be reduced nor enlarged 
by any power but that of the Board while the man 



142 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

retained his place. The Council had ordered the Mayor 
to add 320 patrolmen to the force for the period of two 
months. It had specified that they were to be patrol- 
men and it had appropriated the sum necessary to pay 
them patrolmen's salaries for two months, and no longer. 
At the end of that time the power that put these men on 
the force ordered them taken off, there being no further 
need for their services. The matter should have ended 
there. But the Mayor refused to decrease his patronage 
and kept the men. When he could not secure a contin- 
uation of their salaries, he compelled the legitimate 
policemen to pay it by an enforced subscription of ten 
days' salary from each man. This was done through 
the subterfuge of an enforced ten days' vacation without 
pay. Every dollar of this money belonged by law to the 
men, and the taking of it from them was an act of unlaw- 
ful spoliation. This forcing of money from the regular 
police was done to get a fund to further break the law 
by hiring employes forbidden by the law to be in the 
public service. When the extorted sum was used up in 
this unlawful spoilsmanship other amounts belonging to 
the police fund were unlawfully expended for the main- 
tenance of it until the department's appropriation had 
been exceeded $110,000. Every effort ingenuity was able 
to devise had been used to deceive the tax-payers about 
the proceeding. The Finance Committee was bound to 
see that the moneys appropriated by the Council were 
expended economically and in the work for which they 
were specifically bestowed. When it insisted on this 
conduct in the expenditure of the police funds, the 
Administration succeeded in persuading the public to 
resent what it took for an attempt to lessen the com- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 143 

munity's safety by reducing the police force. There was 
no attempt to lessen the force, only a resistance to the 
increase of it by unlawful means. When the already 
underpaid regular police were forced to give up ten days' 
pay per man, they were made to feel that it was a sacri- 
fice advanced to preserve the integrity of the force. 
When the Council made no appropriation either to refund 
the men this squeeze or to cover the enlarged criminal 
expenditure, the men were made hostile to the city's 
legislature and indifferent to their duty of enforcing ordi- 
nances. They were convinced the Council was specially 
unfriendly to them, was attempting to burden each over- 
worked man with more labor by compelling a less num- 
ber to do it all, and was trying to compel men to quit the 
service by making the receipt of salaries uncertain and 
cutting down the appropriation. The real truth was, the 
Board had been struggling to secure each man his full 
pay and regularity in getting it by preventing diversion 
of the ample police fund. If the city had plenty of 
money, the speaker would oppose increasing the number 
of city employes without good reason. If the treasury 
were bursting he would not, while he was at the head of 
the Finance Committee, permit any official to put one 
man on the pay roll unless the Council first created a 
place for that man and appropriated a salary for him. 
He would use every power available to him as party 
leader, as member of the Council, and as director of the 
expenditure of the tax money, to prevent the Mayor, or 
any other official, from forcing the city to pay unlawful 
salaries, whether they numbered 320, as in the present 
case, or but one. That was the position he had taken 
and held during this entire controversy. It was the only 



144 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

one an honest man could take. It was the one he meant 
to continue, no matter what the consequences might be 
to himself. For these he had no right to care. But he 
besought the other members to stand by him for the 
city's sake. 

This speech produced a profound impression. It 
stirred the spectators into an uproar of applause and 
brought thirty-seven votes to his side to uphold him in 
any action he might take. To the executive party in 
the chamber it was a revelation. They saw it was then 
or never with the Mayor's scheme. They rushed frantic 
into a fight as if for life. They moved for a division of 
the Alderman's motion, arguing it was two in one. 
They insisted on having it made into a motion to file and 
one to concur. But Madden had anticipated this, and 
shown that a motion to concur would make it necessary 
to have his committee bring the matter before the house 
in a report, which concurrence then the Board w r ould 
transfer into an order that the Mayor could veto. Now 
the matter was before the house by the Mayor's own 
action in the Gallagher resolution. The motion to divide 
was voted down amid the wildest excitement. The only 
hope of the administration party was now in adjournment. 
A motion to adjourn was made and declared carried by 
the Chair, occupied for the occasion by an administration 
selection, in spite of a roll call demanded by the major- 
it} r . This gave the Democrats an excuse for leaving and 
attempting to destroy the quorum necessary for the trans- 
action of business. They rushed for the doors and a few 
got out, through the connivance of the janitor, who 
swung the portals wide. The Republicans carried the 
roll call through, showing the motion to adjourn had 



PUBLIC SERVANT 145 

been defeated and that the house was still in full ses- 
sion, and then by force attempted to save the quorum 
present by preventing further desertion. In the encoun- 
ter which resulted, the quorum was saved. The defeated 
and whipped minority refused to vote. But they were 
present. Their number made the voting legal, and Mr. 
Madden's motion was carried by thirty-seven votes, 
those belonging to the twenty-three prisoners not being 
cast. The struggle had lasted four hours and was per- 
haps as great in the parliamentary skill and eloquence 
brought into play as any that ever was witnessed in any 
deliberative body. 

The Mayor gave up the contest and the police force 
resumed its normal and legal condition. The men soon 
realized the value of the presence of a just, enlightened 
and courageous man in the town Council. There being 
no "extras'* now to be supported by "docking," the reg- 
ulars received their full salaries. 

The Council proceedings were fully reported in all 
the papers next day. They produced such a revulsion 
of feeling among all classes of citizens as let in the real 
truth to the public mind. The result was a rally to the 
general support of the Alderman from the Fourth Ward. 
If he had retained any desire to be Mayor of Chicago he 
could have had the Republican noominatin for that office 
for the ensuing spring election and would easily have 
defeated the Mayor, who was arranging to run for re-elec- 
tion, or any other man the Democrats might nominate. 
But the Alderman had retired from the field in favor of 
Mr. Swift, and the wholesome political effect of his long, 
well-fought struggle for the tax-payers went to another 
man. 

10 



CHAPTER XV. 



STARTS CIVIL SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT— FURNISHES IT ARGU- 
MENTS — MANY NEW IDEAS. 



JUk R. MADDEN'S experience with the method of con- 
/ Y 1 ducting the municipal government of Chicago con- 
vinced him not only that civil service reform was the only 
available method of correcting the evils afflicting the 
public service, but that its immediate adoption was 
imperative. It held out the means of eradicating the 
disease and of preventing its recurrence. Every Mayor- 
alty election was a contest for 20,000 salaries. These. 
were good for two years. Few of them were to be earned 
by giving the tax-payers service worth the wages 
received. Most of them were paid rather for the value 
of the help rendered in getting the Chief Executive his 
position, or for the activity expected in procuring him 
another term. The employer was too ostensibly the 
Mayor and too evidently not the people who paid the 
money. The official's interest in the expenditure of these 
20,000 salaries could not but be largely personal. He 
naturally accepted his election under the system as a 
warrant for exploiting himself at the public expense. 
His adherents looked upon themselves as in his pay, in 
his service, at his command. They felt bound to make 
themselves as valuable to him as they could, to get out of 
him as much as possible, and to prolong their opportuni- 
ties to the utmost by maintaining him in the place of dis- 

146 



PUBLIC SERVANT 147 

tribution: On neither side, that of paying out the wages 
or that of receiving them, was there a tithe of the con- 
sideration for the tax-payer that there was for the dis- 
penser of the places. The cow was fed for the milk she 
would yield. She might desire to be some other kind of 
cow, but so long as she did not go dry, the fellow that 
filled the pail did it solely for the boss, and his thoughts 
were about butter. Her ladyship might begrudge that 
use for milk ; she certainly had no interest in butter; but 
the other two had, and was she not in their hands? 

The Alderman concluded that if the tax-payers should 
by law appoint a body of non-partisan competent 
men with permanent commission to control, under 
proper public regulations, all appointments and dis- 
charges in the civic service, the immediate effect would 
be to bar out from public employment all but those fitted 
to enter it. This would result at once in the formation 
of a new class of men, those who had natural aptitude for 
public work. The moment it should be established that 
no one would be employed in civic work unless competent, 
and that once employed a public servant could not be 
dismissed except for cause, men qualified to do what 
tax-payers paid for having done would apply for the task 
with a view of rendering public service equivalent for 
the salaries paid and making of it a life occupation. 
These would undoubtedly include the truly worthy among 
the spoils class, but it would exclude the parasites. That 
in itself would be a great gain, for it would conserve all 
that was worth saving of the pernicious system and 
destroy the rest. It would keep out of administrative 
office men with nothing but personal following, and put 
in persons solely for their ability to manage public 



148 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

affairs. It would prevent re-elections for all reasons but 
those of continued usefulness. Not only that, it would 
reduce taxes by making impossible any public expendi- 
ture except for actual public service. While all the 
servants the city paid were doing nothing but city work 
there would never be employed as many as when a large 
part of their time had to be devoted to the political in- 
trigue necessary to keep the Mayor either in office or 
before the public as a big personality. 

When Mr. Madden announced his determination to 
advocate civil service reform in the city government and 
to do all in his power to bring it about, he was at once beset 
by every kind of political persecution his party adver- 
saries could devise and every effort at dissuasion 
his party associates could invent. The result was a dis- 
cussion seldom .equaled for the skill of the arguments 
brought into play. One prominent political authority 
held that the Almighty had himself given the first and 
best example of the principle that to the victors belong 
the spoils. Divine service, he said, was induced alto- 
gether by expected reward — no one "could get either 
a seat or a harp except by loud praise and effective work. M 
The member from the Fourth thought this logic feeble, 
as Love of Him served and not Expectancy was the real 
inspiration to sound religious living. If not profane to 
institute a parallel between sacred and lay things it 
would be much better for public life if party service were 
attracted by pure love of party principles than by hope 
of office; and, as to gratitude, it would be much better to 
have men grateful to their party than to any individual 
of it for political favors received, and better yet to have 
them grateful to their country; as the offices belonged to 



PUBLIC SERVANT 149 

the country, and when they were bestowed by a party 
they never were the personal gift of the official instru- 
mental in delivering them. 

So far as public offices were in the gift of a party, he 
contended, they were a sort of wage-fund — the only kind 
of currency the party had to pay its hands with ; and it 
was just as dishonest for a man elected by a party to an 
administrative office to liquidate his personal political 
debts by paying them out of the party's wage-fund as it 
would be for a business manager to pay his personal obli- 
gations out of the company's safe. In both cases the 
wage-earners might be deprived of their earnings, and 
in the end both the party and the company would fail 
because unable to obtain labor. On this account he 
.thought that all such offices as Presidential appointments, 
for instance, which could not well be incjuded in the 
civil service list, as the filling of them for securing that 
change of policy called for by national elections was 
necessary, should be considered a sort of fund belonging 
to the party as a whole, and, with few exceptions, like 
those to a cabinet and the principal foreign appoint- 
ments, should be at the disposal of the organization and 
never within the exclusive gift of either the President, 
Senators or Congressmen. If the members of Congress 
were allowed to control these appointments, they would 
more often be used for personal than party advantage, 
more often given to secure individual retention in place 
than party retention in power. If the President were 
permitted to bestow them, he might use them for per- 
sonal ends rather than for party advantage. 

The nearest approach to perfect civil service reform 
in the bestowal of Presidential places possible, Mr. 



150 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Madden urged, would lie in a plan that would prohioit 
the appointment to any of these of any person except 
upon the certification of the local committee of the party 
in power of the place where the appointee was to per- 
form his work. Such a plan would induce the best 
party men in all localities to be active in committee 
work, because then they would have real influence in 
party action. They would see to it that in their local- 
ities the most deserving as well as the most efficient 
party workers got the places at the party's bestowal 
there. Where several candidates possessed equal ability, 
the one who in addition had that of best serving his 
party when it was entitled to service in the office would 
get the place. In this way alone could the best party 
service be everywhere obtained, because it would assure 
proper recognition for correct zeal everywhere, and 
would put office-holders in debt to the organization 
instead of to individuals. It would be much better for 
the country as well as for the party in power to have all 
partisan appointees indebted to the organization for 
their places than to have them grateful to a mere Con- 
gressman, or Senator, or even a President. The party 
was bigger and more important than either or all three 
together. It was the £>arty which was elected to power 
and not any individual of it, and the place-holder's obli- 
gation, where it could not go to the country as a whole, 
should go to the party as a whole, and never to an indi- 
vidual of it. Such a policy would also relieve Congress- 
men and Senators, as well as Presidents, of not only a 
great deal of useless work and worry, thereby enabling 
them to attend to their duties better and with more 
single-mindedness, but it would place the responsibility 



PUBLIC SERVANT 151 

for party appointments upon those to whom it properly 
belonged — the managers in the localities where the office- 
holders' work was to be done. The managers would 
carry this responsibility much better, as a rule, than ever 
it had been borne under the way things were conducted 
now. When Presidents, Senators and Congressmen 
should be confined strictly to the doing of the work they 
were elected to do, and were deprived of patronage as a 
means of getting into office or of remaining there once 
in, better public work would be done and better men 
would be elected to do public work. When both the 
great parties into which the people of this country had 
always been divided and into which they bid fair to 
remain divided, were made solely responsible for the 
policies they advocated by having entire control of the 
selection of their members who were to carry it out, 
then only would party government reach the real effi- 
ciency of which it was capable. No President, no Sena- 
tor, no Congressman that ever was elected to office pos- 
sessed either the ability, the knowledge, or the inclination 
that would enable him to select as good a postmaster, 
collector, or revenue officer, to perform federal service 
in any locality, as were possessed for that purpose by 
such committees of residents as would be induced to 
manage party interests if this plan of political home rule 
were generally adopted. It would be ideal civil service 
reform in Presidential appointments. 

Mr. Madden intimated it could perhaps be success- 
fully contended that if the plan he suggested for the reg- 
ulation of Presidential appointments had long ago been 
put into operation for all federal offices by both parties, 
there never would have arisen the necessity for the civil 



152 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

service reform which within recent years had removed 
so many thousands of government places from the per- 
sonal control of public men. The whole evil of the so- 
called spoils system had been due to the personal element 
in the control of public places* It was the same element 
that had vitiated the public service in municipalities. It 
was that alone that had brought about the wretched con- 
dition of the civil service in Chicago. 

"Consider the situation here," he said. "Our 
Mayors have personal control of about 20,000 appoint- 
ments. They appoint every policeman, fireman, clerk, 
head of department, street sweeper, jailer, and so forth. 
All these men are at the absolute mercy of the Mayor. 
He can transfer, suspend or dismiss them — make it pos- 
sible for them to earn a good living, a poor living or no 
livelihood at all. The fortunes of all of them are bound 
up in the Mayor's career. If he desires to remain in 
office, they must all spend their time electioneering for 
him instead of serving the public which pays their sala- 
ries. When their time is in this way partly taken up in 
the Mayor's service, either the public work is neglected, 
or more people are required to do it. As the duration 
of the Mayor's term is that of their employment, they 
are more likely to use their time 4 feathering their nests' 
than in attending to their duties. If the Mayor is cor- 
rupt, they are more so. If he is not popular enough to be 
assured of another term, they increase their looting. If 
he is an open-town man, they race him preying on vice. 
No matter what the Chief Executive may be, the entire 
horde cannot be good public servants, because they are 
in the service for 4 what there is in it' for two years^ 
the administration term. The whole thing is wrong 



PUBLIC SERVANT 153 

from top to bottom. The only cure is civil service 
reform. We must take all these appointments away from 
personal control and put them under public control. 
That £an only be done by putting all civic appointments 
into the hands of a public body which shall represent the 
tax-payers, select the public employes solely for their 
fitness to do the work they are to be paid for, and 
appoint them for life or good behavior. Every fireman 
passed should be assured of his place while able to work. 
Every policeman selected should know that he is in ser- 
vice for life. Every fireman and policeman should be 
assigned to duty in the district where he has decided to 
live, so that he may know all the people there and be 
able to distinguish strangers. 

44 They should not be compelled to pay money or lose 
time going to and from work. They should know that 
no one will have the power to annoy them by transfer, 
and that they will always have their salaries unimpaired 
by any deduction so long as they do their duty, and that 
they or their families will be cared for if they are injured 
in the public service. They should do duty entirely 
where they live, because their interest there would be 
greater than it could be anywhere else, and every one in 
the locality would be a friend and ally in their work. 
Criminals would be less likely to locate or dwell in neigh- 
borhoods where policemen live as well as work than in 
those where they go only as strangers. There should be 
no change in any but executive officials when there is a 
change in Executives. The civil service should be com- 
posed of a staff that has been composed to remain, has 
been selected to stay, and that cannot be either dis- 
turbed or harried in any way by any change in the mere 



154 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Mayoralty. It should be the well selected machinery 
for the running of the business of the city, founded to go 
right along, irrespective of any change in engineers. 
The Mayor should be simply the engineer engaged by 
the corporation to run its machine and not his own, its 
machine a carefully selected and constructed fixture, 
manageable by any reputable engineer, M 

"Yes, but a pure man in the office of Mayor could do 
a great deal of good with those appointments. You are 
being urged for the place. See the power for good you 
would have in the control of 20,000 offices. Why then 
attempt to destroy the system; why not stand by it and 
save it for the influence it preserves for good men?" 

4 'The human nature in me might make me as suscep- 
tible as any other man to the enjoyment of the power 
lying in the control of such a large number of people 
depending on me. But I would rather be Mayor with- 
out that patronage than with it. With the office in view, 
I am in favor of having it shorn of all this power of 
appointment. If I should become Chief Executive at a 
time when the Mayor still had these 20,000 appointments, 
I would do all I could to fill them with the best men pos- 
sible to obtain, and might be able in doing it to help the 
party that elected me and at the same time build up a 
personal following useful to any ambition I should have 
for the future. But I cannot see that with all my expe- 
rience I could fill all these places as well for the tax-pay- 
ers as could a commission devoted to that work alone. I 
could not possibly be as disinterested as that body 
would be, no matter how much I tried ; nor could I give 
the work of selection as much time and skill. If you 
should consider me a perfect public servant and your 



PUBLIC SERVANT 155 

opinion and the fact should match, yet a commission 
would in the work of finding efficient employes for the 
city surpass me in every way. That being so, if 1 were a 
candidate for the Mayoralty, for the only good reason 
warranting aspiration to that office — a desire to serve the 
public — I should be bound to prefer having all the 
appointments controlled by a permanent non-partisan 
Board. And so far as personal convenience could right- 
fully enter the question, I still would prefer to have the 
Board control the appointments. I should desire to be 
as good a Mayor as I could be. It would be easier to 
be a good Executive with Board appointees to carry on 
the civil service than with personal appointees, for the 
former would be far more likely to be all efficient than 
my own selections. If I had the office already equipped, 
with all the places filled with better public servants than 
1 could pick out, I could give my full time to executive 
work. If, on the other hand, after being sworn in I had 
to find 20,000 suitable persons to help me, and then 
maintain continual political interest in them all, I should 
have on my hands another job that might prove far more 
exacting on my time and ability than the office I was 
elected to fill. Every disinterested consideration of the 
subject leads surely to this conclusion: that in municipal 
government the non-executive offices should be perma- 
nently filled by selections made by a continuous non- 
partisan Board acting for all the taxpayers. So far as 
these city servants go they should constitute a fixed fea- 
ture of the civil administration, like the parts of a 
machine an engineer is to handle for the concern that 
employs him. They should be always ready at hand, 
supplied in advance, permanently appointed, so far as 



156 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

possible; and not subject to change or substitution by 
each new Chief Executive employed. The Mayor of a 
city is elected to office to execute the will of the citizens 
as expressed in the city ordinances. His entire time 
should be devoted to executive labor. He should not 
have to find public servants; they should be already in 
place as parts of the system he is engaged to direct, 
not form." 

44 But isn't the quality of the men elected to the Pres- 
idency a proof that the old way is the better way? 
They were all elected under the spoils system." 

"We have elected twenty-five Presidents. Among 
the thousands of rulers who have governed all other 
countries there cannot be found an equal number of men 
comparable in ability and virtue to the twenty-five Pres- 
idents the American people have elected consecutively. 
This fact is the greatest of all the arguments in favor of 
republican form of government. The superior character 
of all the Presidents who have managed our national 
affairs successively for over one hundred years does not, 
in any way, prove value in the spoils system. It does, 
however, demonstrate the value of placing the responsi- 
bility for the selection of candidates on the whole party 
organization, and, properly considered, affords the strong- 
est of arguments for civil service reform. The history 
of the Presidential elections conclusively proves that the 
greater the number of the people who actively engage in 
the work of selecting federal executives, the better the 
selection. When the people of the country are divided 
into two parties, each candidate for the Presidency 
represents the choice of one-half the population. For 
more than a century the population has been so divided 



PUBLIC SERVANT 157 

in national elections. The results show that one-half 
the people have always selected better men for office than 
smaller divisions have; for the Presidents have all been 
better men than those elected by smaller constituencies, 
such as Governors, Senators, Congressmen, and so on. 
The smaller the number of people making choice of an 
official, the more inferior, as a rule, the man chosen, 
until you get away down to the constable, in whose elec- 
tion probably the least number of voters take interest. 
Now, if the greater the number you can interest in the 
selection of a public official, the better the man chosen, 
until you get up to the President, selected by half of the 
people, it w r ould seem to follow that if you could get all 
the people to choose you would do better still, as was 
done in the selection of Washington. That is the very 
essence of the principle of civil service reform. It 
assumes that in the selection of men for the performance 
of public duties, the choice of all the people is the best 
choice and that of the individual the worst. It proposes, 
because of this, to remove the selection of public serv- 
ants from the control of individuals, the worst selectors, 
and place it in the control of the whole population, the 
best chooser. This it proposes to do through a Board 
appointed by all the people and representing them all, 
having for its purpose the selection of men for the pub- 
lic service, not in the interest of any individual or of any 
party, but of the entire community, comprising all indi- 
viduals and all parties." 

Those were remarkable arguments to be made in the 
five or six years preceding 1895 * n Chicago by a 
man ambitious to be Mayor of the city. They are, per- 
haps, the best ever uttered on the subject; at least, they 



158 MARTIN B. MADDEN 



have not been excelled. They convey an idea of Mad- 
den's method of expounding his principles, but do so no 
better than the two following examples, drawn out by a 
very recent debate on the same subject with some inti- 
mate political friends: 

A' managing politician of his own party in the city 
said to Madden: "This civil service humbug is but a 
college industry devised to find employment for the sur- 
plus product of the colleges. " 

" If the colleges do nothing else than educate young 
men for the public service they will be doing about as 
good a thing for the country as they can well do, " was 
the response; "for \\p to date there have been no per- 
sons at all trained for public employment. Heretofore, 
men have got their training for office in office at the tax- 
payers' expense. It will be a good deal gained if the 
schools at their expense furnish the knowledge before- 
hand needed to run the offices of the country properly 
from the start." 

"Yes," said another Bourbon, "but this here thing 
of refining in the tests for officeholding kin be carried 
too far. They've got it to a point now where it bars out 
the great majority of the American people from holding 
any office in the country. When I was a boy any man in 
the country could hold office. Now, only a few kin stand 
the tests and get in. All the rest is barred out. Its 
gettin' to be like China. That's where civil service 
started. And they've got the thing down so fine there 
now that-all the offices in the empire is held and monop- 
olized by a few rich fellers that kin afford to put in their 
whole tirrie on books. The great majority of the Chinerse 
have no hope of ever gettin' any share in the govern- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 150 

ment of their country. That's why they don\t care any- 
thing for the government of their country. That's why 
there's no patriotism in China. It's gettin' to be the 
same way here. The people are losing their patriotism. 
When I was young everybody was a patriot in this 
country. Then, everybody could hold office if he wanted 
to. But now civil service bars most of the people out, 
and they've grown indifferent to the government and 
don't care as much for it as they used to. People ain't 
as patriotic as they used to be. Civil service reform has 
killed patriotism off. It was different in the old days. 
Then, every Presidential election there was 100,000 
offices for the winners, and about r, 000,000 men in each 
party struggling to get them. That made politics lively. 
Everyone was interested in the outcome. That stirred 
everyone up. That made public sentiment healthy. 
Now there's nothing to fight for. The civil servicers 
get everything, no matter which party wins. So politics 
is dead. Nobody cares any more which party wins. So 
patriotism is dying out. Civil service is killing it." 

Madden was not taken by surprise at this effort at 
reasoning. He instantly recognized in it the prevailing 
ignorant view cultivated by the lowest clas.s of politicians. 
He said: "China probably devised the system of public 
examinations to ascertain the fitness of candidates for 
office, and has carried it to such perfection that in normal 
times none but well qualified men can attain important 
positions in the public service of the empire. The exam- 
inations are open to all and the tests do not bar any from 
public place but those not qualified to serve. Li Hung 
Chang, the son of a farmer, is a conspicuous example of 
the rise of a Chinaman by means of ability demonstrated 



160 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

at the public examinations. Although Chinese of pure 
blood, he has by publicly proved ability risen to first place 
under the foreign government of the Manchu dynasty. 
In the recent international war he was entrusted alone 
to negotiate the peace settlement with the representatives 
of all the powers combined. He had through public 
tests established perfect confidence in the minds of all 
his countrymen in his ability to successfully meet all 
who might be arrayed against him, and his achievement 
in securing an agreement by the powers to let the 
indemnity forced on China be paid mainly from the 
duties on those things on which the foreigners pay the 
tax, would seem to fully justify the good opinion of him 
entertained by his people. The partisanship called 
patriotism has no field for display in China, because the 
government is paternal and there are no party divisions. 
The people hate the dynasty because it is foreign and, 
of bourse, their patriotism would all be manifested in 
opposition. Their civil service system, instead of dull- 
ing their patriotism, really increases their pride in their 
public officials because of their known and demonstrated 
ability. 

44 The whole world recognizes the increase of patriot- 
ism in this country. In the 4 old days,' say those of the 
Revolution, there was a Tory party in the United States. 
In the War of the Rebellion there still was a party of 
Copperheads, not, however, so potent as the opposition 
George Washington had stabbing him in the back. But 
patriotism has become to nearly universal in the Union 
that an American President would now practically have 
no American enemies to encounter in a foreign war. In 
every instance in the history of the country wherein any 






PUBLIC SERVANT 161 

popular manifestation of dissatisfaction with the govern- 
ment has occurred, the facts show it was caused by the 
evils of the spoils system. As these evils have disap- 
peared, as control of federal offices has been removed 
from individual power, as consequent corruption and 
scandal have been eliminated, as civil service reform 
has been extended in the federal departments and the 
public service has been improved by trained and efficient 
servants, patriotism, pride in the government, has corre- 
spondingly increased, and its manifestations have become 
proverbial all over the world. 

"The mere mention of the alleged necessity of hav- 
ing offices to give for political work in order to induce 
interest in elections in the 4 old days,' shows the utter 
lack of real patriotism in the workers who required such 
incentive. They didn't labor for their country because 
they loved their country. They simply loved 'what there 
was in it. ' The presence of the successful class of these 
'crib livers' in the offices of the country did more to dis- 
courage patriotism and disgust citizens with their govern- 
ment than any other thing, except the disgruntled vapor- 
ings of the class kept out. If civil service reform did 
nothing more than starve such men into the necessity of 
earning their bread by any kind of honest labor they 
were capable of, it helped the cause of patriotism 
immensely. With the disappearance of these parasites 
from public life interest in politics has so increased that 
in the two last Presidential elections nearly the whole 
suffrage of the country was polled, a thing never pos- 
sible to attain in the 'old days' of the spoils system. The 
real fact is that in the spoils period it was difficult to 

interest the average citizen in the work of procuring a 
11 



162 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

change of office-holders for the benefit of the 'outs, ' and 
political activity was as a rule left to the *grub hunters. 
Now that elections are held mainly for the promotion of 
principles, and cause little change in office-holding, they 
afford a real interest to citizens who love the government 
and have an increasing pride in the method of its con- 
duct, and inspire full voting." 



CHAPTER XVI. 



PASSES CIVIL SERVICE REFORM BILL— IGNORES INGRATITUDE- 
RESCUES LAW FROM DESTRUCTION. 



IN 1895 ^ r - Madden was nominated for his fourth term 
in the Council. There was arrayed against him the 
strongest candidate his combined opponents could put 
into the field. This was a Reform candidate placed in 
opposition to Mr. Madden by the local branch of the Civic 
Federation for some reason that has never been 
explained. This organization was composed of a large 
number of the most influential citizens of the town, 
banded together for the purpose of securing Civil Service 
Reform. Of this the Alderman had been not only the 
most persistent advocate but the most influential. He 
had done more than all the other reformers together to 
create sentiment in the Board and among the citizens for 
the movement. It was mainly through his efforts that 
the Civil Service Ordinance presented to the Council by 
Alderman Mann on Dec. 3, 1894, had been brought for- 
ward. This ordinance, after being passed, was form- 
ulated into a legislative act establishing Civil Service 
Reform in Chicago, providing the statute should be sub- 
mitted to the voters of the city at a regular election and 
by them approved by a majority vote. The proposed 
law was at the time before the Legislature, with the 
Civic Federation as its sponsor. Efforts were being 
made to have it passed in time to have the voters act on 

163 



164 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

it in that spring's Mayoralty election. The measure was 
"held up'* securely by interests opposed to its passage 
and others using it as a block to obtain consideration for 
bills. 

The Federation 's.open hostility to Madden in his own 
ward created suspicion and general misapprehension. It 
caused the fiercest and closest canvass ever made in the 
district. Three different house to house polls were 
taken. All parties became divided. A Democratic 
Madden club was organized to offset Republican defec- 
tion. It grew until it contained 500 members. It paraded 
the streets every fair evening with transparencies calling 
on the voters to rally to the support of Madden, "the 
best Alderman the city ever had." 

The excitement in the city over the election was 
equaled, though on a smaller scale, in Springfield over 
the Civil Service Bill. The Hon. Lyman J. Gage, pres- 
ent Secretary of the United States Treasury, was there 
in the interest of the bill, in company with the Hon. John 
H. Hamline, President of the Civic Federation, and a 
host of similar prominent reformers. Nearly all of these 
had lent the use of their names to the Reform Candidate 
running against Alderman Madden in his own ward. 

About March 15th, in the most exciting period of the 
city struggle, the officers of the Federation who were at 
Springfield realized that they could not secure the passage 
of the Reform Bill without party help. Alderman 
Madden was at the time Chairman of the City Central 
Republican Committee and acknowledged party leader 
in Chicago. The Civil Service Reformers at Springfield 
sent to him as party leader an urgent request to come to 
the capital and assist in getting the measure passed, stat- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 165 

ing that it was in the Senate and lacked nine votes, which 
could not be obtained. This request was perhaps the 
most extraordinary ever made of a candidate running for 
office. The Federation was doing all in its power to 
retire Madden from public life and was pushing him 
hard in his home district by the use of a special candi- 
date put there by the organization to split the Republican 
vote. To now ask him, within a few days of election, 
to abandon the contest in its critical stage and leave it 
to the Federation's nominee and go to Springfield to 
assist the Society in the cause of Reform, looked to most 
of the Republican workers like a well conceived subter- 
fuge to assure Madden's complete overthrow. 

He took a different view. The request indicated to 
him that the Civil Service Bill must be in a desperate 
tangle at Springfield to induce his avowed enemies to 
solicit his help. Their request convinced him they were 
sincerely in favor of the proposed reform, else they would 
not seek assistance from an enemy in a cause both 
espoused. He concluded to go and telegraphed to that 
effect, asking merely that he be absolved from blame for 
obnoxious city legislation that might be rushed through 
the Council during his absence. It was suspected at the 
time that certain Aldermen were prepared to introduce 
and hurry through a couple of bad franchise measures 
they had in hand during the hurry of the closing days of 
the old Board's Hfe. Gathering a number of the ablest 
city party managers together he went with them to 
Springfield. Grasping the situation at once, he and his 
friends set to work to obtain the nine votes needed to get 
the Civil Service Bill out of the deadlock and passed. It 
took two days and nights of the hardest kind of work. 



166 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

On March 19th the Alderman turned over to the Civic 
Federation for the passage of its measure twelve new 
votes, and the Civil Service Law was enacted. In the 
history of Reform legislation Madden is the only person 
who is recorded as having alone been able to put on 
statute books a Civil Service Reform Law. 

His work at the capital accomplished, Madden returned 
to Chicago, arriving in the morning. He at once went 
before the Republican Executive Committee of Cook 
County and suggested the adoption of a resolution, which 
he presented, calling on all the voters and political work- 
ers in the county to do their utmost to secure the adop- 
tion of the Civil Service Law in the election on April 
2d. If the voters then by a majority approved the law 
it would become operative on the first of the following 
July; if they did not, the date of its operation would be 
indefinitely postponed. The fate of the law was entirely 
within the control of the Republican party in the city. 
The committee unanimously adopted the resolution. 
Then he had issued a proclamation urging every voter 
to use every legitimate influence within his control to 
procure votes for the law, so that the tax-payers might 
realize its benefits as soon as possible. This was posted 
immediately all over the city and sent out in special 
mails to the electors. The whole machinery of the 
Republican party was put to work and strained to its last 
possible effort to destroy the whole spoils system in the 
municipality. This was the work that produced the 
result accomplished. Mr. Madden made no display; he 
had neither disposition nor time for that; what he was 
after, as usual, was results. 

He then went back to his canvass, after a three days' 



PUBLIC SERVANT 167 

absence from it. As he had feared, two "boodle" ordi- 
nances had been put through the Board of Aldermen dur- 
ing his absence and the Civic Federation party in the 
Fourth Ward were industriously using the fact against 
him. They were arguing that he was really responsible 
for both measures and that his absence was a trick to 
allow them to be passed without himself going on record 
foi them. These same reformers both concealed and 
denied the fact that the Alderman had gone away in the 
interest of the very Reform movement they were man- 
ipulating against him. 

To the credit of the press of Chicago it must be said 
that when the news from the State capital was placed 
before its editors and they realized fully what had been 
done at Springfield, and were informed by their local 
reporters of what was being done in the city campaign, 
they lost no time in raising a row over the whole hypoc- 
risy that was being operated in the Fourth Ward against 
the real achiever of Civil Service Reform for the city. 
Several editors, whose papers had up to this time been 
bitterly fighting Madden, turned them entirely about into 
advocates of his election, some even demanding it in the 
name of good government. The campaign was in its 
last days and the revulsion had barely time to enlighten 
public sentiment. President Hamline took it upon him- 
self, in the name of the Civic Federation, to go into the 
Alderman's district and take the stump against the work 
of his own Society. He announced everywhere he 
obtained an audience: "To Mr. Madden belongs the 
credit of having secured for the City of Chicago the passage 
of the Civil Service Reform Law. Without the votes he 
got for the measure the bill could not have been passed." 



168 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Mr. Slason Thompson, editor of the Journal, led in 
this work. His paper had been one of the most intelli- 
gent and powerful agencies used in the campaign up to 
this time for the support of the Civic Federation's Alder- 
manic candidate in the Fourth Ward. He did not hesi- 
tate one moment in changing his attitude. He was dis- 
interested and sincere. On March 22d he came out in 
an editorial calling on all the voters in the Fourth Ward 
to rally to the support of Madden. 4t Speaking for 
myself," said Mr. Thompson, 4, and the Journal, I think 
Alderman Madden is a public benefactor. In the first 
place, the people of the State of Illinois and of the City 
of Chicago owe it to the Republican party that the Civil 
Service Law has been given to them for adoption. Had 
it not been for Alderman Madden we (speaking for the 
Civic Federation) could not have passed the bill and the 
reform might have been indefinitely delayed. I was at 
Springfield with the Citizens' Committee. We had only 
five of the ten Republican Senators from Cook County 
favorably inclined to us before Mr. Madden came. The 
country Senators would not come to our support so long 
as we lacked unanimity among those from our own 
county. Mr. Madden came to the capital and with his 
personal and political influence secured to us the five 
home votes we needed and which, until he worked on 
them, had been opposed to us. They gave us the local 
unanimity we had to have. It strengthened our favor- 
able men and welded the Cook County Senators together, 
and this solidity enabled us to obtain the other votes we 
needed from the country. I consider this the most 
important piece of work on the part of a public man 
that has been done in ten years either in Illinois or Chi- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 169 

cago. It stamps Mr. Madden as a public man of vast 
usefulness. He has been called a machine politician, 
but by his work for Civil Service Reform he has proven 
himself a citizen of the highest type. We advise the 
voters of the Fourth Ward to send him to the Council. 
It is not possible that his opponent in his whole life has 
performed for the public services as valuable as Mr. 
Madden has accomplished in two days." 

President Hamline, of the Civic Federation, made this 
public announcement: "The Civil Service Law is the 
most important enactment that has been added to the 
statutes of Illinois in many years. Alderman Madden 
enabled us to secure its passage. Without the aid he 
gave the law could not have been passed. He is a pub- 
lic-spirited citizen and a representative of the people to 
whom all true Chicagoans owe a debt of gratitude. He 
should have full credit for his work." 

The News, Independent, on March 22d, said: "The 
election of Mr. Madden is more necessary in the interest 
of reform and good municipal government than the elec- 
tion of any other nominee on this year's tickets." 

"His record, his leadership, are an example few could 
emulate. Since 1855 Chicago has had bright and bril- 
liant men as Chairmen of the Finance Committee, but not 
one other of them all has done as much as Mr. Madden," 
said another newspaper. 

City Comptroller Jones, Democrat, said for pub- 
lication: "As Chairman of the Finance Committee 
Mr. Madden is a bulwark of strength to the city 
government. His thorough and complete knowledge 
of the financial conditions of the city, its resources 
.and necessities, is marvelous. Without a moment's 



170 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

hesitation, he can, without reference to a book, give 
an accurate answer to any question about a financial 
fact relating to the city. As Chairman of the Finance 
Committee Mr. Madden is the right arm of the Mayor, 
an invaluable aid and assistant to the Comptroller." 

44 He is the brainiest, most capable and most self-sac- 
rificing man that ever held the helm of the Republican 
ship of state in this city He stands without a peer, 
without a rival, the ablest Alderman of them all ' 
announced the Dispatch. 

The Inter- Ocean said: 44 Mr. Madden has been engaged 
in a single service all his life. He is the head of 
the house in which he first labored in the humblest 
capacity. Thirty years of faithful duty is the highest 
possible proof of merit. His financial management of 
the city has challenged universal admiration. The rec- 
ord he has made in the Council is that of a leader of men, 
wise in counsel, courageous in action, and successful in 
all he undertakes to do. He never in all his life betrayed 
a friend or broke a promise. His name is a synonym in 
business circles for integrity and uprightness." 

Alderman Hepburn appeared before the public in an 
address in which he used the following statement: <4 I 
have sat in the Council now six years with Mr. Madden, 
and I desire to say this to the people of Chicago: Never 
in the history of the city has there been a man in that 
body who served either his ward or the whole city as 
faithfully as this man has done. He has done more in 
the past two years for the city than any Mayor has ever 
accomplished. He has stood up time and again in the 
two years just passed when Chicago was on the verge of 
bankruptcy and saved it from toppling over. He has 



PUBLIC SERVANT 171 

stood at bay an administration that was plunging the 
city into ruinous debt, and it has been this one Alder- 
man's efforts, his determination, his will, his force and 
his power alone that have saved the town from utter 
bankruptcy, It has been well said of him that he was 
not more the representative of the Fourth Ward than of 
the entire population. He has introduced and passed 
more bills for the benefit of Chicago and its citizens than 
all the balance of us put together, and 1 know thoroughly 
what I am talking about, and the records of the Council 
will prove it." 

Madden's own explanation to his constituents was 
that when the choice was presented to him of remaining 
at home and attempting to fight the assured majority 
that would put on passage the two obnoxious ordinances, 
or of abandoning both that struggle and the one for his 
re-election and going to Springfield, he chose the trip, 
because he believed he would be able to obtain the votes 
Civil Service Reform needed to become an accomplished 
fact. He had ascertained he could not prevent the pas- 
sage of the ordinances; all he could do was to make a 
record of opposition by staying at home and he had been 
convinced he could secure the passage of the law. The 
law would prove of more value to the city than any piece 
of legislation enacted since he had been in public life. 
It was a thousand times more necessary to all the tax- 
payers, those of the Fourth Ward included, than the elec- 
tion of any Alderman or any number of Aldermen. 

He was returned to the Council by a majority of 1,200. 

The election resulted in the popular adoption of 
the Civil Service Law by a large majority. It went into 
effect on July 1, 1895. The Mayor, according to its 



172 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

terms, appointed three Commissioners to frame rules for 
the selection and discharge of employes in the city's civil 
service. At the outset these officials established an age 
limit, putting it at forty-five years. This barred from the 
public service every surviving soldier who had served in 
the Civil War. Nothing could have been done more 
perilous to the cause of the reform. The public of Chi- 
cago rose against the outrage. There was danger that 
the whole plan of having public servants examined for 
qualifications would be swept out of existence by the 
indignation of the people. Heroic measures had to be 
adopted at once to correct the blunder and save the law. 
Mr. Madden took the question up and arrayed the entire 
Council against the Commissioners' ruling. He chose 
for his ground the contention that constitutionally no 
power but that of the city legislature could determine who 
should hold office in the city, and that even that body 
had no right to fix an age limit. The Commissioners had 
no discretion whatever in the matter of prescribing 
eligibility. All they had the right to do was to ascertain 
and report upon the ability to fill office of those who 
applied for public positions under the classifications made 
by the Council. It alone could say what offices were to 
be filled and who should have them. The examiners 
could do no more than certify to the fitness of the appli- 
cants as shown at the public examinations and furnish 
lists to the appointing powers from which to select ascer- 
tained capables. The Commissioners themselves could 
neither appoint nor discharge; they could only make and 
carry out rules for preventing the appointment of incom- 
petent or the discharge of competent men. The only 
ability they had the power to certify to was purely that 



PUBLIC SERVANT 173 

of being able to properly perform the duties of the posi- 
tions the applicants asked to be examined for. This ques- 
tion of ability was entirely one of fact, ascertainable by 
examination, and in no-wise one of age, except in the 
extreme cases of senility or immaturity. The prerog- 
ative of deciding how old or how young office-holders 
should be, as well as that of saying what classes of citi- 
zens should be eligible to office, belonged solely to the 
law-making power; the Commission being confined to the 
work of simply certifying to the fact that applicants 
belonged to the classes designated by law as those 
entitled to hold office. To limit the age for office-hold- 
ing to forty-five years was to establish a class. That was 
usurping a legislative power. It was an outrage as well. 
A case had never been known in which a man had proven 
himself incapable of performing public civic duty simply 
by being forty-five years old. For much public work 
men of that age were better qualified than men under 
it. The soldiers were all past it, and those of them not 
yet decrepit were especially fit and deserving. The rule 
of barring these men from public service in the city of 
Chicago almost approached insanity in its lack of sense 
and patriotism. It should be instantly stabbed to death. 
For the purpose of ending the injustice and scandal 
at once, Mr. Madden introduced and proposed the 
immediate adoption of an ordinance declaring unequiv- 
ocally that in all matters respecting the classification of 
persons eligible to positions in the city service the Coun- 
cil alone had the power of decision; prohibiting the 
establishment of the proposed age limit, and confining 
the duties of the Civil Service Commission to the preven- 
tion of the appointment of incapable persons to office and 






174 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

the protection from discharge of those deserving to 
remain in the service. The speech he made in support 
of his measure was one of the most eloquent ever heard 
in the city. It carried the Council without a dissenting 
voice, and the ordinance was adopted by a unanimous 
vote. This was extraordinary, as the Civil Service Law 
had many opponents in the Board, and the vote saved 
the law. If its enemies had successfully resisted the 
Madden ordinance and thus permitted the Commissioners 
to have their way, they might have made the law so 
odious as to have brought about repeal of its enactment. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



ASSURES CHICAGO S SUPREMACY IN MANUFACTURE— SAVES LAKE 
FRONT— CREATES PARK THERE. 



AFTER Mr. Swift's election a movement was strongly 
organized to form the Republican party in the city 
on lines that might diminish Alderman Madden's ascend- 
ancy. This grew to such extent that it arrayed the 
Mayor and his official adherents in a somewhat hostile 
attitude even in the conduct of municipal affairs regu- 
lated by the Council. When the conflict reached the 
point where it began to threaten the impairment of Mr. 
Madden's usefulness as a public servant he called upon 
the Mayor and said; *'It is best that there should be a 
clear and unmistakable understanding between us. You 
are Mayor, and as such, represent in an official capacity 
the citizens of Chicago. You are also the acknowledged 
leader of the Republican party in this city. The major- 
ity of the citizens, by electing you to your office, have 
publicly declared that the policy of the party, as outlined 
in the platform upon which you stood as candidate, is 
the one they wish carried out during your term of office. 
As a member of the City Council I represent the major- 
ity that elected you, in the legislative work of the munic- 
ipality. As Chairman of the Finance Committee I repre- 
sent the citizens of the city in all questions respecting 
taxation and disbursement of the public moneys. As 
spokesman in the Council of the party that elected both 

175 



176 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

of us I represent its integrity in all matters consistent 
with the city's interests. Now, all this being so, I wish 
you to know that it is my intention, as it is my duty, to 
support you in every measure you may take both as 
Mayor and as party leader, so far as councilmanic action 
may be necessary or helpful to you in such measures. 
You may always in these matters call upon and demand 
my help, and you may rely upon it that I will readily 
give it, and give it cheerfully and with all the ability 
that I possess. I desire that you accept this avowal. It 
is made without any reservation. " 

Chicago's natural advantages should in time, Mr. 
Madden for years has argued, make it the most beautiful 
city in the world and the most pleasant to abide in. The 
territory is level and easily improved. The situation by 
the lakeside gives it two possessions unequaled for sani- 
tation and comfort. Lake Michigan, nearly 500 miles long, 
ninety miles wide, and over 400 feet deep, is fed by sub- 
terranean springs. The water is cold, pure and health- 
ful. All the corporation needs do is to pump it out and 
distribute it. The cost of doing this enables the popula- 
tion to have all they wish for use and waste for less than 
any other large community can obtain a needed supply. 
The lake is so large that it cannot be perceptibly raised 
in temperature. It modifies the summer heat so that 
the city is saved from torridity, and is cooler than any 
other place in the same latitude during the heated term. 
The winds are much of the time in June, July and 
August from the east, and as they cross the cooling 
water on their way to the town they bring energy and 
refreshment to its people at the time when other popu- 
lations cannot escape depression and lassitude. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 177 

The city lies along the western shore- of this remark- 
able sea for a length of twenty- five miles. This beach 
line affords an opportunity for civic pleasure and adorn- 
ment nowhere else possessed by any large city. For 
nature has decided, and the people of Chicago have 
arranged, that the immense shipping trade shall be car- 
ried on in the heart and back of the city, where even 
better facilities exist, and that the lake front shall for- 
ever be devoted to beauty and to pleasure. 

The lake front in the southern half of Chicago was for 
many years left to raggedness and disuse because of a 
stubborn dispute all the time over the title to the sub- 
merged land. The Illinois Central Railroad had a right 
of way along about seven miles of the best water line 
and used it for trackage for its own cars and those of 
other lines entering the city. This use prevented pop- 
ular access to the water, and its resultant dirt, smoke, 
noise and rumble made the most desirable residence dis- 
trict on the South Side practically unavailable for home 
building. /The question was taken into the courts, where 
the financial resources of the company kept it until the 
people got it to Washington. There at last the supreme 
deciding body in the country affirmed the city's conten- 
tion that it owned the submerged land. 

What to do with the vast estate now became the most 
important matter for consideration the people had had 
since they started to build the greatest city in the world. 
The Federal Government engineers had reported that 
the average depth of water for a distance of 1,250 feet 
out from the shore line and a distance of about seven 
miles north and south was too shallow for shipping with- 
out artificial interference and might, therefore, be appro- 

12 



178 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

priated by the municipality as not being navigable and 
under government control. The drainage canal was 
being dredged at the city end and the millions of cubic 
yards of excavated matter would go a great ways towards 
making dry land of this water waste. 

The problem attracted universal attention, and great 
speculators from all over the world flocked to the work 
of offering solutions. In New York reports got out that 
Chicago was going to create $500,000,000 worth of real 
estate and put it on the market to obtain a permanent 
municipal fund for making the city a cosmopolitan place. 

After much discussion and sifting of propositions, the 
more skillful politicians succeeded in impressing the 
public with the idea that the best thing to do with the 
new estate was to utilize it altogether for shipping pur- 
poses. Fill in the area, dredge great slips, construct 
immense wharves, build enormous elevators, put up vast 
docks and storehouses, and make Chicago the finest 
harbor in the world — that was the tempting vision held 
out. The revenue, the prestige, the business it would 
attract, would enrich the city beyond calculation and 
make it grow so great that every foot of land in ic would 
become worth more than whole lots then brought. 

Mr. Madden had now been in the city legislature for 
five years, during three of which he had managed its 
finances. He had become thoroughly versed in the 
town's needs and advantages and was alive to its many 
opportunities. He had been watching the legal contest 
over the shore line question, and with much study and 
controversy had worked out a solution that aimed at the 
best permanent results. He took ground at the start 
that the lake front should never be given over to any 



PUBLIC SERVANT 179 

other than public uses. All the people, he argued, had 
a common right of access to the water. To permit any- 
business to be built up along the submerged land that 
would make it either impossible or inconvenient for the 
people to exercise their right of access, would be both 
unfair and unwise. It would, so to speak, shove the city 
that much farther from the lake. It would be like put- 
ting the back yard in front of the house. Because of its 
climatic advantages, Cfiicago would gradually attract a 
large number of summer residents from the south, and 
in time, as it. should be beautified, would become the 
metropolitan place of living of the well-to-do from the 
whole middle west. The chief educational center of the 
Union would eventually be there. The principal natural 
beauty of the locality was the lake shore front. To 
destroy this by turning it over to the ugliness, the bustle, 
the turmoil and the uncleanliness of the shipping traffic, 
would be to chase away or keep from coming a popula- 
tion that would be of more advantage financially to the 
place than the profits of the wharves. 

His main argument, however, was that to concentrate 
the shipping on the lake front would forever rob the 
city of the advantage that was bound sooner or later to 
make Chicago the greatest manufacturing place in the 
world, and therefore the richest town. After the drain- 
age canal was completed the Chicago River would be 
joined to it, making a forty-mile deep-waterway in the 
center and rear of the city. Not long after that the 
Calumet River, at the southern boundary, would be 
extended until it also joined the canal. That would add 
about fifteen miles to the internal waterway, making of 
the whole South Side a vast island, surrounded by rivers 



180 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

entering the lake twenty miles apart. All the railroads 
coming into and leaving the city would in time find their 
ways in and out along the interior waterway. The 
result would be an advantage for manufacturing not 
equaled anywhere else. Factories located along the 
rivers and canal could receive their raw material direct 
from trains or boats without cartage, and could send 
away without cartage their finished products. This one 
saving of cartage would be such a valuable element in 
the cutting down of expenses and the increase of profits 
in the business of making and distributing goods, that 
it would gradually draw to Chicago all the principal 
lines of manufacturing carried on in the country. Iron 
ore could be brought in bulk from the northern mines 
and delivered from the ship to the furnace, and the fin- 
ished iron or steel could be delivered in bulk from the 
mill to the train or boat, without any hauling. The coal 
underlying most of Illinois, which produced heat in less 
time than any other coal, could be delivered in Chicago 
for factory or mill purposes to the factory or mill, with- 
out hauling, for less than a dollar a ton. There were 
enough sites along the canal and river frontages to 
accommodate more manufacturing than was now done in 
the United States, and every site could have railroad 
switches or water front, and most of them both. Trans- 
ferring the shipping to the lake front would retard the 
growth of the manufacturing business of the city by sub- 
jecting it to cartage. The raw material would have to 
be hauled from the docks across town to the factories, 
and the finished products hauled back to the ships. That 
cartage would be an element of cost that would prevent 
the investment in the city of millions of dollars which 



PUBLIC SERVANT 181 

its absence on the interior waterways would invite. The 
hauling back and forth across town would so interfere 
with the local trade as to ruin most of it and hamper it 
all. It would also seriously interfere with travel and 
spoil whole districts devoted to residence. 

New York was now the chief manufacturing city on 
the continent. There was but one railroad entering it. 
Its depots were so situated that goods had- to be carted 
to and from them. All the other railways terminating 
at New York had to deliver goods to the city by both 
ferriage and cartage and receive goods by wagon and 
water transportation. That ate up profits and piled up 
costs. Chicago alone of all large American cities had 
the natural monopoly of absolute freedom from all these 
local expenses. That monopoly would enable her 
rapidly to distance all competitors in the inevitable 
struggle for ascendancy in the manufacturing trade of 
the country. Nothing but absolute folly in throwing 
away, or refusing to exercise, her monopoly could pre- 
vent her from acquiring that preponderance in manufac- 
turing that would concentrate it along the interior water- 
ways of the city. Nature intended Chicago to be the 
center of factories and distribution of goods for the whole 
Union; the city of the vastest weekly pay roll in the 
world; the home of the largest, best paid, most comfort- 
ably housed and happiest population on earth. 

Asia would soon wake up. Her half of the human 
race would go into trade and increase their consumption. 
Asia would be the western man's market, and would 
take all the food the yet untilled lands could yield for 
export. Oriental trade might, and probably would, 
vastly exceed European trade. It would people the west 



182 . MARTIN B. MADDEN 

more densely than the east was occupied. Chicago 
would grow with the west, would manufacture for it and 
finance for it. The city, already having 2,000,000 of 
people, was merely in its infancy. 

To abandon the river and move to the lake would be 
taking a step backward, would be retreating into the 
manufacturing class of New York ; would be commercial 
folly. 

With all his energy the Alderman set about the task 
of disseminating these arguments, and many more like 
them, to arrest and throw back the movement for lake 
front shipping. The moment he learned that the 
Supreme Court had fixed the title to the lake front in the 
city, he took steps to at once kill off the shipping transfer 
scheme. For this purpose he drew up an ordinance 
creating a park of the submerged lands accruing to the 
municipality. This called for the immediate filling up 
of the tract from Randolph Street south to Park Row, a 
distance of one mile, and from the railway tracks out 
1,250 feet. The tracks were seven feet below the level 
of Michigan Avenue, the nearest thoroughfare parallel - 
to the lake. They could be lowered four feet and the 
strip of land between them and the avenue raised 
inclinedly until it attained an elevation of four additional 
feet at the tracks. That would leave the railway bed 
fifteen feet below the new surface. The ground on the 
eastern side of the tracks could be raised to the same 
level along the railroad line and be joined to that on the 
western side by architectural bridges at each street 
crossing, leaving the roadbed down in a sort of lighted 
subway. Then the made land could be gently sloped 
to the water's edge. In this one park there would be 



PUBLIC SERVANT 183 

about 200 acres. It would be the most valuable park of 
its size in existence and one of the most beautiful, and 
would lie abreast of the most crowded business portion 
of the city. Nothing in civilization would equal it in the 
way of municipal adornment, utility and advantage. In 
time it might have grouped upon it the magnificent 
buildings contemplated for libraries, art galleries and 
public museums. 

The ordinance passed the Council at once and imme- 
diately took the public fancy. Washington Porter pro- 
posed to continue the improvement from .Park Row all 
the way south to Jackson Park, the site of the Columbian 
Exposition, a distance of about six miles, with a wide 
canal and parallel driveway the entire distance. The 
Porter* plan was favorably received and accepted for 
future action. 

With the plan legalized there came the difficult labor 
of obtaining the co-operation of the Illinois Central Rail- 
road Company, the abutting property owners, and the 
various civic societies working for public improvements. 
There were many hitches, misunderstandings, back-sets 
by the commercially inclined, and legal obstacles. 
Public agitation was kept up and the obstacles were so 
speedily overcome that in a few months all interests were 
working in harmony with the Alderman, and the pro- 
ject was pushed through. 

The ordinance was submitted in June, 1894, and in 
the following November the agitation had resulted in the 
general adoption, without change, of the plan first out- 
lined by Mr. Madden. He had done his part of the work 
so carefully, even to the task of ascertaining what the 
railway corporation might be induced to do, that it was 



184 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

found that he had anticipated and prepared for all the 
emergencies and was able to successfully meet them as 
they arose. Within two 3'ears that part of the improve- 
ment lying west of the railway was finished and turned 
over to the public, the retaining wall outside the 1,250 
foot eastern line was completed and much of the filling 
in accomplished. 

The Lake Front Park is an accomplished fact for the 
preservation forever from all but public use of the mag- 
nificent water front of Chicago. When the whole park 
plan is completed it will do more than all other schemes 
combined to make the city the desirable place of residence 
nature intended it to be. It will revolutionize to advan- 
tage the dwelling districts, and make ideal for permanent 
homes and the best class of hotels the extreme eastern 
section. It will cause a gradual congregation of the 
shipping, manufacturing, wholesale merchandising and 
railway business of the city along the internal water 
lines, the least desirable place of residence, and confine 
most of the trucking and heavy handling there, leaving 
the other parts of the town free from its necessary dis- 
turbances. The homes of the people and their shops, 
churches, schools and meeting places will be free from 
the annoyances and dangers of heavy traffic. The 
artistic, educational, literary and theatrical interests will 
be availably neighborly. The galleries, institutes, 
libraries, museums, and exhibition buildings will be 
grouped and arrayed together more conveniently and 
more impressively than similar structures can be in other 
places in the world. The lake front of Chicago will be 
the future pride of the west, and to visitors from all the 
countries will be the scene of a life travelers will pay 



PUBLIC SERVANT 185 

much money and come long distances to witness. No 
legislator ever performed for his public a better or more 
enduring service than was done when this land was 
secured for public use, and no public servant ever left a 
better monument. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



SECURES GOVERNMENT HELP FOR CHICAGO TRADE— A CONVINCING 

ARGUMENT. 



DURING the navigation season of 1895 it became 
apparent to all the commercial interests of the 
Middle West that the port facilities of Chicago, through 
neglect of the Federal authorities, were rapidly becom- 
ing inadequate for national needs. A great movement 
was organized to bring the subject to the active atten- 
tion of the Washington Government. This resulted in 
the winter of 1896 in the formation of a representative 
committee of influential citizens to go before Congress 
and solicit intervention. On this body the lake marine 
interests appointed representatives, as also did the Board 
of Trade, the coal dealers, the manufacturers, the com- 
mercial men and the corporation of Chicago. At the 
last moment, the Chairman of the Finance Committee of 
the city legislature was induced to go as the municipal- 
ity's spokesman. 

The National treasury, although it had expended con- 
siderable amounts in the improvement of the outer har- 
bor at the mouth of the Chicago River, had never allowed 
but $25,000 for any increase of navigation in the stream 
beyond the first or lowest bridge, that at Rush Street. 
The river being a navigable water, had since the earliest 
navigation laws been under Washington control. Chicago 
was willing to handle the whole question if the govern- 

186 



PUBLIC SERVANT 187 

ment would relinquish its authority and turn the river 
over to the city's custody. This being out of the' ques- 
tion, it was determined to ask for sufficient aid to enable 
the business of the town to be fairly accommodated on 
the waterway it could not regulate. Estimates of all 
immediate needs were carefully made up. They showed 
that the sum of $700,000 was required at once. The 
committee went before the Committee on Rivers and 
Harbors and asked it to set that amount aside for the 
necessary improvement of the Chicago River in the annual 
appropriation bill then being prepared for submission to 
Congress. 

The addresses made were all unusually able. The 
Tribune, in its dispatches describing the proceedings, 
without any reservation or disparagement whatever, 
unhesitatingly pronounced the argument made by Mr. 
Madden on behalf of the city the one that convinced 
Congress and led to action. He took ground at the very 
beginning of his speech that the question was wholly 
national and in no sense local. The appropriation 
requested was for the purpose of so increasing general 
transportation as to keep down and lower the prices of 
the necessities of life in the whole Middle West and of 
food in the entire country. Chicago had not only become 
the manufacturing and distributing center for upwards of 
half the population of the country, but it had developed 
into the main source of supply for all its people of their 
two principal items of food — meat and grain. The trade 
in animal products had so concentrated in Chicago that 
it was the country's market for most of the live stock 
raised for the American table, and the city's abattoirs 
furnished meat even to foreign countries. The largest 



188 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

aggregation of capital engaged in the furnishing of any 
single commodity of human consumption was that 
invested in the stock-yard business of Chicago. The city 
had also become the grain market for the whole civilized 
world. Its elevators had a storage capacity of 40,000,000 
bushels at a time. Leaving all other considerations aside, 
the population of the entire country was directly inter- 
ested in having every means of transportation to and 
from Chicago both enlarged and cheapened, in order to 
favorably affect the prices of the two main articles of 
human food whose production and distribution in their 
final forms of consumption had by the operation of 
natural laws centered in the city. Formerly, he went 
on, when boats drew but little water they easily com- 
peted with success in the work of transportation and kept 
the rates down. When the railways substituted steel 
rails for iron and were enabled to run larger and heavier 
trains, the boats had only to increase their draught to 
remain in the race and cause further lessening of trans- 
portation charges on food products. So long as the boats 
could be lengthened and deepened, water transportation 
worked in the interest of all the people in lowering and 
keeping down freight rates, by preventing the railways 
from obtaining a monopoly of the carrying through their 
augmented power of handling by means of the enormous 
improvement in their power. The steam roads had now, 
however, passed the point in competition where the boats 
could longer retain their proper share of carriage, for 
the reason that rail power had gone beyond the tonnage 
possible any longer to the capacity of boats. The waters 
had remained stationary in depth and the boats had at 
last in their draught reached their limit, and could no 



PUBLIC SERVANT 189 

longer by enlargement compete with the roads unless the 
navigable streams at harbors should be artificially deep- 
ened. Until this was done the carrying trade would 
gradually be monopolized by the railways and the prices 
of products would correspondingly be increased. At 
least they would not be lowered as they would have to 
be if the water transportation were maintained by enlarg- 
ing its facilities. 

Statistics demonstrated the truth of all his contention, 
Mr. Madden argued. When the capacity of the rail- 
roads through improvement in their carrying power got 
beyond the full competition of the boats because of their 
inability to further increase their holds, the former began 
to control the transportation to and from Chicago in a 
way unfavorable to its trade because injurious to the 
prices of products of general demand and universal 
human necessity. 

Anthracite coal, an eastern product, was too costly 
under rail transportation for general consumption in 
Illinois. By water transportation it had been delivered 
at prices that had found for it an annual market in Chi- 
cago of 1,475,237 tons in 1892. Then, the boats having been 
largely superseded by the cars in the coal carrying trade, 
prices began to rise and consumption to fall away. In 
1893 the trade fell off about 50,000 tons; in 1894 the 
consumption had declined 198,000 tons, and in 1895 it 
was 206,665 tons less than it had been before the roads 
took the transportation of it away from the boats. Dur- 
ing these same three years the population of the city had 
increased nearly 500,000. 

The receipts of grain by water had from the same 
cause so fallen off that in 1895 the city got by boat but 



190 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

1,629,023 bushels, although in that same year it sent 
away no less than 82,300,214 bushels, in addition to 
1, 507,543 barrels of flour and 4,063,720 packages of mis- 
cellaneous freight. In 1895 but 2,000,000,000 feet of 
lumber came to Chicago by water, on which formerly 
nearly all that came was brought, while by rail there came 
1 , 000, 000, 000, feet. 

The reason for the decline of the boat carrying and 
the increase of that of the cars was that the river along 
which most of both terminated and started was no longer 
deep enough to allow large water cargoes to be handled 
without lightering and other expensive aids. The cost 
of handling freight at the wharves had risen until it now 
amounted to twenty-five per cent, of the whole transpor- 
tation charges each way. If the river were sufficiently 
deepened this cost could be reduced until it would 
become merely nominal. 

The entire population of the United States had a vital 
interest in the deepening of the Chicago River and the 
maintenance of its competition with the railroads, as the 
river was the greatest factor in the country in the busi- 
ness regulation of the prices of meat and flour. The 
problem was in no sense a local one. It was not a Chicago 
question, nor an Illinois question. It was clearly a 
national one. The arrivals and departures of vessels at 
Chicago during the year 1895 aggregated 15,324, nearly 
as many as the combined arrivals at Baltimore, Boston, 
New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. This 
fact showed better than any other how closely interested 
all the people of the country were in the shipping busi- 
ness of the city. When in addition to the vast harbor 
activity of the city, there was added for contemplation 



PUBLIC SERVANT 191 

the connection of the 80,000 miles of railway that had 
terminals along the river, there could be no doubt that 
the nation had a better reason for caring for this interior 
harbor than it possessed for the guardianship of any sim- 
ilar length of water frontage in its whole domain. 

The river had a dockage front of 214,296 feet, and 
the people of Chicago had themselves expended in dredg- 
ing this national waterway $979,000. The request now 
was that the Government take hold of this invaluable 
arm of commerce and put it into such modern shape as 
would enable it to do what nature had so evidently 
intended it to perform — regulate favorably for all the 
people of the country the cost of their meat and their 
bread, by making it easier and cheaper to concentrate 
the elements of that food in the place best fitted to pre- 
pare them for consumption, and easier and cheaper after- 
wards to distribute it thence to all who needed it. 

The effect of the speeches, and especially that deliv- 
ered by Mr. Madden, was so great that Chairman 
Hooker, of the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the 
House, at once declared that the Chicago proposition was 
entirely meritorious and would be acceded to. It had 
been arranged to have appearances before the War and 
other departments concerned in the question, but Mr. 
Hooker's assurance made further agitation unnecessary. 
The $700,000 appropriation asked for was granted. Then 
began the work of making the interior waterways of 
Chicago a harbor of the depth required for modern 
marine commerce. The improvement is still going on, 
and when completed, as it soon will be, it will give the 
city a twenty- six-foot depth of navigable water along a 
course, including the Drainage Canal, of nearly a hundred 
miles through the very middle of the whole city. 



CHAPTER. XIX. 



FIRST REPUBLICAN MANAGER TO DECLARE FOR GOLD — UNDER- 
TAKES TO GET WORD IN PLATFORM. 



GOLD" was the most important word in the platform 
adopted by the Republican party at St. Louis in 
1896. It was put there by the men who attended from 
Illinois. All except one of the forty-eight state delegates 
voted for it. 

But for the skillful and determined action of these 
men the Republican financial plank of that year would 
have been a "straddle." In that event, Mr. McKinley 
would not have had the support of the Sound Money men 
from the Democratic party, nor could he have obtained 
that marvelous and enthusiastic electioneering by the 
banking and commercial interests of the North which 
made the campaign so like a battle for the preservation 
of American honor and integrity. The Gold Democrats 
would have acted by themselves, and the great mass of 
Silver men in the Republican ranks would have probably 
gone over in a body to Mr. Bryan after his convention 
unequivocally declared for Silver, as they would not 
have had the deterring arguments the Democrats 
afforded when they became allies. 

When the word "Gold" was forced, as it was forced, 
into the Republican platform, the majority of the party 
managers were strongly averse to declaring for the yel- 
low metal. The attitude of the only candidate for the 

192 



PUBLIC SERVANT 193 

Presidential nomination was in doubt. He had never 
made a public declaration for Gold, and had furnished 
many arguments that were being quoted for the cause of 
vSilver. His managers at the time believed that the tariff 
question would be the main issue in the campaign, and 
did not think it necessary to inject the financial question 
into the argument. They correctly represented the 
sentiment of the Eastern States, and, from the point of 
view of their territory, took a wise and politic stand. 
Besides, at that time there was no apparent probability 
that Mr. Bryan would obtain absolute control of the 
Democratic organization seventeen days later, have him- 
self selected as its standard bearer, compel his party to 
declare unequivocally for Free Silver, and drive the 
Jeffersonians out of the fold. Few delegates, except 
those from the Middle West, knew who Mr. Bryan was, 
or had any suspicion that in the core of the country the 
Nebraskan was known to be the most dangerous man 
living to Republican prospects, and "that his financial 
ideas were the political bread and meat of a constituency 
frenzied with zeal in their propagation. 

The country had grown so vast that ordinary men 
seemed unable longer to maintain comprehensive knowl- 
edge of all its conditions and to realize what interests 
might have predominant elements over those really local. 

Under all the circumstances, it is marvelous that the 
Illinois men were able to understand as correctly as they 
did the true conditions at the time, and it is no less 
extraordinary that they were able to carry their point. 

The history of the United States cannot be correctly 
written for future readers, that is, mankind, without just 
pages carefully devoted to the saving work performed by 

13 



194 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

the Illinois men in this critical period of the nation's 
formative growth. All through the story there will be 
manifest the insight, the correct judgment, the skill in 
argument, the persuasive power of speech, as well as the 
inspiring patriotism, tireless energy and moral force of 
character of one young man. His parents had trained 
him so that whatever was right to do had for him 
allurement to endeavor. They were made of patriotic 
mould, and in public life he could not help reasoning 
that what was best for the nation was best for the state, 
best for the county, best for the locality, and best for the 
individual. 

All through these six volcanic months he pushed 
straight through for the greatest good to the greatest 
number, just as he had done during the previous six 
years, whilst financing the most tumultuous municipal 
growth of modern times, as Chairman of the Finance 
Committee of the Council of the City of Chicago. 

The Silver movement, as it appeared in the political 
agitation of 1896, may correctly be said to have had its 
origin in Chicago. All the scattered elements of it that 
had previously existed were collected and focused by 
Harvey about two years before. He was singularly 
single-minded and sincere. His genius was prodigiously 
sympathetic to parallelism, to the impressions which 
Aristotle described as those of the sequence-consequence 
kind. To Harvey a sequence was always a consequence. 
When he saw an effect, his logic invariably perceived 
the cause of it in the thing that most immediately pre- 
ceded it. He would have convicted Joseph of the alleged 
theft of the silver cup simply because it was found in the 
young man's sack; and if a physician, he would have 



PUBLIC SERVANT 195 

prescribed rhubarb for a patient who had swallowed 
tacks if he had subsequently eaten cheese. 

Harvey saw distress general in the country. Millions 
of workers were idle, tramps abounded, farmers could 
not get living prices for products. Money in actual circu- 
lation was scarce. It was, he thought, dear because it 
was scarce. Being dear, employers could not afford to 
pay former wages, and eaters could not afford to give so 
much of it for food; hence, farmers had to give more 
grain for a dollar and laborers more work. Why was 
money scarce? There was now only one standard money 
— gold. Formerly there had been two standard moneys 
— silver and gold. There was as much of one metal as of 
the other in the world. Therefore, when both metals 
were coined into standard money, there must have been 
twice as much money in circulation, and at that time 
farmers and laborers must have been able to obtain twice 
as much for their grain and labor. When was silver 
discarded as standard money? In 1873. Who were in 
power then? The Republicans. How much silver and 
gold then? $4,000,000,000 of each — $8,000,000,000 alto- 
gether. By confining the standard to gold, $4,000,000,000 
of silver was dropped from use as money, and gold was 
given the monopoly of money work. Having twice as 
much now to do as formerly, there being a doubled 
demand for it, gold had multiplied in value, and the 
laborer now had to give correspondingly more work for a 
gold dollar, and the farmer more grain. Where formerly 
the one got a dollar a day, he must now work for fifty 
cents; and where the other got a hundred cents a bushel 
for his wheat, he now had to sell for half a dollar. The 
act of 1873 was, therefore, a conspiracy against labor 



196 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

and agriculture by the gold, or money, power, which 
was aiming to enslave the world by reducing the condi- 
tions of labor and agriculture to those of mere existence 
and consequent servitude. The Republican 'party was 
responsible for this and should be kept from power. The 
Democratic party would restore the standard value again 
to silver and would double the wages of labor and raise 
the price of wheat. 

Harvey devoted all his energy to the task of search- 
ing for sequences and then used all his sophistical skill 
in marshaling them into array. The result was the 
book, "Coin at School." This was beyond comparison 
the most effective campaign document ever circulated in 
the United States up to that time. The unrelated char- 
acter of its. parallels was exceedingly difficult to discover 
by any but trained minds, and, when noticed, was of 
such a nature that it was almost impossible to clearly 
expose it in any terse and lucid way. "Coin" sold 
by the hundred thousand, and its philosophy was so 
captivating that scores of Republican newspapers through- 
out the West devoted their energies to circulating it 
either by continued quotations or open free distribution. 
Mine owners organized lyceums and defrayed the whole 
expense of keeping the ablest orators employed lecturing 
or debating on the topics of the book. So great was the 
effect that when the National parties began the work of 
electing delegates to the nominating conventions of 1896 
it is fair to say the financial question was the liveliest 
that had ever agitated the West; and it cannot be denied 
that at this time practically all the people with Demo- 
cratic leanings in the region between Ohio and the Pacific 
were Free Silverites, and that a powerful minority of 



PUBLIC SERVANT 197 

their Republican neighbors shared the same financial 
views with them. In some of the states both parties 
raced to get ahead of each other in proclaiming for Free 
Silver. In California all the four parties in existence in 
that commonwealth, including the Republican, officially 
declared in their platforms for the free and unlimited 
coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. 

The 'Republican delegates from Chicago were elected 
in February, 1896. Mr. Madden was at the time the 
party leader in the city. At the first conclave the finan- 
cial question came up, and he was asked for an expres- 
sion of his views. He promptly said he was in favor of 
having the party declare itself against the free and unlim- 
ited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, and 
of putting the word Gold in the financial plank. 

This was the first declaration of the kind that had 
been made in the West by any man prominent in the 
management of Republican political affairs. It created 
consternation among the majority of hearers. It seemed 
like a flight in the face of fate. Men asked Mr. Madden 
if he was going to insist on having the party commit 
hara-kiri. It was pointed out to him that all the legisla- 
tion respecting silver was Republican legislation ; that 
the majority of the party were friends of silver; that the 
Opposition in the West were solidly and aggressively for 
it, and that to proclaim for gold would not only make it 
impossible for the Republican party to win the acces- 
sions it needed for victory from the opposite ranks, but 
would drive over to them half the voters it had; in fact, 
it would simply make it impossible to carry on a cam- 
paign with any hope at all. 

Mr. Madden to this said that the silver movement 



198 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

was wrong and mischievous and ought to be defeated; 
the country was on a gold basis and ought to be kept 
there; the gold basis was the only safe one for the 
nation's financial affairs; the Republican party was the 
only party that could keep the nation where it was; the 
silver sentiment was a delusion, and the voters could, by 
intelligent effort, be convinced of that; the gold standard 
was the best for all the people as well as for the Govern- 
ment; this could be proved to the voters by campaign 
work, and that the only way to do was to declare for 
Gold' and then set to work to bring the electors to that 
standard. In his opinion, there could be no doubt of 
success if the Republicans were straightforward enough 
to declare their real convictions; but every doubt if they 
resorted to evasion or indirection. 

The meeting ended without harmony. It was man- 
ifest that there would be dissension in the state delega- 
tion over the wording of the financial plank. Able men 
predicted that it would be impossible to bring the mem- 
bers into accord on the subject, and even advised against 
attempts to procure it, lest bitterness, rupture and scan- 
dal might result. While it was hoped that the majority 
of the state delegates might be gold men at heart, it was 
also feared that their districts would be so strongly for 
silver as to make it practically impossible for the repre- 
sentatives to declare for a gold plank. 

The whole state was entitled to forty-eight delegates, 
of which number Chicago's share was sixteen, including 
two delegates-at-large. When all the district delegates 
were elected a careful poll disclosed that but sixteen 
were personally in favor of a gold plank, and many of 



PUBLIC SERVANT 199 

these doubted the expediency of making any declaration 
on the subject. 

The general opinion was that the best thing to do 
would be to reaffirm the plank in the platform of 1892, 
pledging the party to maintain all kinds of United States 
money at par, and there let the matter rest. 

Mr Madden had studied the question profoundly, and 
the more he investigated the political conditions of the 
country the more firmly convinced he became that the 
time had come to establish the gold standard by law as it 
was established in fact, and that the Republican party 
could not win the election unless it openly committed 
itself to the task. He saw clearly that a declaration for 
Gold was the only thing that in 1896 would draw out the 
full business vote of the country, and that this would go 
to the party making the declaration. He also reasoned 
that if the Democrats declared for Silver, their party 
would divide and that the gold wing would help the 
Republicans establish the gold standard. These two 
gains would far more than offset any defection of Silver 
Republicans which a Democratic silver declaration 
might bring about. He knew that the old line Demo- 
crats were uncompromisingly for gold, while the Silver 
Republicans entertained for the white metal a sentiment 
only and that that was not so strong as their feeling for 
Protection. The Opposition would certainly declare for 
Free Trade and that would keep the great majority of 
the Republicans at home just as surely as the pronounce- 
ment on the other side for soft money would drive the 
evicted Jacksonians over for shelter. 

He undertook the task of securing unity ^among his 
colleagues in favor of his view. By the time the State 



200 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Convention met at Springfield in April to nominate a 
Gubernatorial ticket, the fourteen Cook County district 
delegates were in favor of declaring for Gold. Proselyt- 
ing was zealously carried on at the State Convention, 
and when it adjourned thirty-six of the delegates to 
St. Louis favored a declaration for Sound Money. 

At the State Convention Mr. R. W. Patterson, man- 
ager of the Chicago Tribune, and Mr. William Penn 
Nixon, editor of the Inter- Ocean, were elected delegates- 
at-large to St. Louis. The Tribune had all along been 
the uncompromising foe of the Silver movement, while 
the Inter- Ocean had permitted the Silver Republicans to 
argue their cause in its columns. It was a master-stroke 
by Mr. Madden to get these gentlemen on the delega- 
tion. H. H. Kohlsaat, proprietor of the Chicago Even- 
ing Post and morning Times-Herald, and a close personal 
friend of Mr. McKinley and Mr. Hanna, became inter- 
ested in the Illinois movement, and gave it all the assist- 
ance in his power. 



CHAPTER XX. 



ILLINOIS FORCES "GOLD" INTO ST. LOUIS PLATFORM— THE ARGU- 
MENT THAT WON. 



AT this time, what was evident to the Eastern people, 
who lived in the manufacturing section of the 
country, was the depression in manufacture. The mills 
were either idle or running on reduced time. It was in 
that region plain that the Wilson Bill, by reducing the 
tariff on goods made here as well as in Europe, had pre- 
sented the amount of the reduction to the foreign man- 
ufacturers, that they were using this bonus to undersell 
the Americans by the amount of it, and that this advan- 
tage had transferred employment from the United States 
to Europe, and was keeping its mills open and ours shut. 
It is no wonder, then, that the Eastern delegates went 
to St. Louis thoroughly convinced that there could be 
but one issue in the campaign — the restoration of Protec- 
tion. To them there was no money question to be dis- 
cussed. Money had had nothing to do, they argued, 
with the closing of the factories. It is noteworthy that 
no Eastern man during the campaign of that year, pro- 
duced any of the vote-making arguments on the money 
question — they all originated in the West, the majority 
in Illinois, and the most effective in Chicago. 

In the Middle West, on the other hand, agriculture is 
the principal occupation of the people, although in 1896 
there was enough manufacturing carried on among them 

•?01 



202 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

to familiarize them with its advantages as a producer of 
home markets and with the main arguments in favor of 
protective tariffs. But they did not see with their own 
eyes the kind of idleness, want and general paralysis 
witnessed in the East. What they saw was the scarcity 
of money; the difficulty of getting any; their country 
overrun by tramps; unparalleled depression in prices for 
their products, and the difficulty of finding markets at 
any price. Their country was yet new, and most of its 
people were still mortgaged for their homesteads. For 
the solvent it was difficult to get money to pay the regu- 
larly recurring demands of interest, and thousands of the 
newly- started were bankrupt, with foreclosure staring at 
them, or entirely dispossessed. The vast majority of 
these nation builders were patriotic to the heart and 
attached to the party of Lincoln. They were looking 
forward with hope to St. Louis. They were praying 
that there the right remedy for the ills of their section 
would be decided on. To them that was the rehabilita- 
tion of silver by a restoration of its free and unlimited 
coinage at the old ratio of sixteen to one. This, they 
believed, would make money again plentiful, so that 
they could get fair enough prices for their products to 
save their homes and maintain themselves upon their feet; 
It was apparent that these people wanted silver legisla- 
tion and were indifferent to the tariff question ; and it 
was equally plain that if they did not receive satisfactory 
assurance of it at St. Louis they might seek it at Chicago 
and join the party that gave it to them. 

-When the Illinois delegation reached St. Louis the 
members from Cook County were practically united in 
favor of demanding a party declaration for Gold, and 



PUBLIC SERVANT 203 

twenty-two of the country delegates were individually 
supporters of the movement to secure such a pronounce- 
ment. 

Nearly every one of the state and territorial delega- 
tions was accompanied by large bodies of citizens 
intensely interested in having the Convention do the best 
thing possible for curing the country of the awful ills 
afflicting it. It would be a moderate statement to say 
that 20000 American citizens, representing every inter- 
est and section in the whole country, each one intensely 
concerned in the outcome, went with the delegates to St. 
Louis to actively advise, assist and otherwise take part 
in the proceedings. When all had arrived and the differ- 
ent delegations had reported and quartered, there was a 
rush to a general mix-up and exchange of views for the 
purpose of arranging forces in the coming contest No 
one but an American who has seen the spectacle can 
form anything like a correct idea of the confused but 
overwhelming appearance of the power exhibited by one 
of these mix-ups. Forty-five states and seven territories 
on the ground with 2,000 picked mental gladiators, 
attended by 20,000 backers, every man the best his home 
can produce, about to engage in a battle for the safety 
of a country, for which each would cheerfully give all 
his blood, in a mingle for advice as how best to line-up — 
it is the superbest contest of brains the whole world can 
now afford. In that great crowd of all strong men, each 
picked at home as the fittest there, they only surmount 
to final control who possess ability indeed supreme. 

The Illinois delegates went in thirty-six for gold, came 
out forty-seven to one for it. When the whole mix-up 
was ended, it was found that the state's men had pulled 



204 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

over to their proposed alignment so many other dele- 
gates that the commonwealth was perforce accorded the 
preparation of the financial plank. The Committee on 
Resolutions accepted it as the Illinois men made it, and 
such a party majority of votes was at last brought over 
that when the platform was finally read in the Conven- 
tion the declaration for the gold standard was applauded 
as by thunder. 

And what was the argument that prevailed? It was 
the one Madden and his Chicago colleagues had been 
spreading for five months; the same that started at 
Chicago in February with one delegate, then was used by 
fourteen, then, Springfield, had thirty-six missionaries, 
and reached St. Louis with forty-seven zealots, and there 
captured the whole Convention. This is the way it 
ran: 

The East wanted Protection; its labor was idle, with- 
out market. The West wanted money, its crops not 
paying for the raising, the markets being too low. The 
East manufactured for the West and the West fed the 
East. When Eastern men were all employed at good 
wages, as they had been before the passage of the Wilson 
Bill in 1892, they spent the greater part of their income 
every week for food, for the cereals and the meat the 
West raised. 

With full employment American labor bought 94 per 
cent, of all the farmer had to sell. The rest of the 
world bought only 6 per cent. When American labor 
was idle, the foreign market did not buy any more than 
its usual 6 per cent., but the home market took less 
than the usual 94 per cent., leaving the difference on the 
farmer's hands. That lowered prices and made money 



PUBLIC SERVANT 205 

in the West scarce by reducing the farmer's receipts for 
his crops. The idleness of American workingmen dur- 
ing the past four years had resulted in such food econ- 
omies that in flour alone they consumed 180,000,000 
bushels of wheat less during the year just gone than they 
ate in the average twelve months before the Wilson Bill 
was passed. That bill had, therefore, cost the American 
farmer a market that formerly took every year 180,000,- 
000 bushels of his wheat, to say nothing of the corre- 
sponding amount of his other products. No foreign mar- 
ket took so much as that market lost had taken. This 
180,000,000 bushels of wheat was left unsold on the farm- 
er's hands. It reduced the price of all his wheat, cur- 
tailing his money receipts, and, unless fed to stock, was 
almost a dead loss. How came this loss? The Wilson 
Bill, being a free trade measure, reduced the protection 
on American manufactures below the safeguarding line. 
Every cent of the reduction was a bonus to the foreign 
manufacturer, given to induce him to come in and take 
our home market. He had used the gift to undersell our 
manufacturers by the whole amount of the bonus. That 
underselling had closed our factories, thrown our laborers 
out of work, made them poor, and rendered them unable 
to spend as much money for food a$ they formerly had 
spent and would again spend if they had work with 
which to get it. 

The amount of wages these men formerly paid out for 
food over and above the amount they now spent, was the 
sum the Wilson Bill had caused to be withdrawn from 
circulation, principally in the West and there almost 
entirely among the farmers. There was just as much 
money now in the country as there had been before the 



206 , MARTIN B. MADDEN 

passage of the Wilson Bill, but that act had locked it up 
from the wage earners of the country, and, as a conse- 
quence, from the farmers. There were at present over 
4,000,000 men in the country entirely or partially without 
employment at wages, who had had steady work at high 
wages before 1892. Including themselves they supported 
on an average five human souls each. That made over 
20,000,000 people. All these in 1891 had money to buy 
all the food they wanted every week. Few of them at 
the present time could buy more than the merest neces- 
sities of life. This condition was the real source of the 
hard times, of the scarcity of money in circulation, and 
of the depression in Western agriculture. The cause of 
it was the Wilson Bill. The remedy was the repeal of 
the act. That would restore the conditions existing up 
to 1892. The factories would be re-opened, the idle be 
re-employed, wages again be earned and spent every 
week, money again get into full circulation, the home 
consumption of food once more reach 94 per cent, of the 
domestic production, the farmer be relieved of the sur- 
plus that now weighed down his market, and he would 
get prices that would yield him a surplus of cash instead 
of a surplus of products. 

No uncommon intelligence is needed to realize how 
completely such an argument, duly amplified, cleared the 
situation and accomplished harmonious action. The 
question of standard was argued as one of policy justified 
by rightfulness. The country was on a gold basis. It 
had been placed there by the Democratic party in 1834 
and simply left there by the Republicans in their legis- 
lation of 1873, when they declared for a resumption of 
specie payments to begin in 1879. At the time the 



PUBLIC SERVANT 207 

amount of silver in a silver dollar was worth more than 
the amount of gold in a gold dollar. It would have been 
foolish, as well as futile, to then legislate for the free 
and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 
sixteen to one, because silver was worth more than that 
ratio and would not have gone to the mint to be coined 
for less than its value. The laws passed afterwards, when 
silver, through overproduction, fell below gold in value 
at the ratio of sixteen to one, and continued to fall, and 
came to the mint, vastly increased the money in circula- 
tion by artificially maintaining silver money at the value 
of that in gold. To then legalize the free coinage of both 
metals at the ratio would have driven gold out of circula- 
tion, lessened the currency and compelled creditors to set- 
tle for less than was due them. The restricted coinage of 
silver increased tfye amount of it used as money by about 
sixty-six times as much as had been coined during the 
entire period of the eighty odd years of free coinage, and 
kept all the gold that came to the mint in circulation 
besides. By this system whatever profit there was in 
buying silver at the market value and coining it at gold 
value, fell to the Government or whole people back of 
the guaranty, and the Government always had gold with 
which to transact its business with the world, which was 
on a gold basis. Under free and unlimited coinage of sil- 
ver at the ratio of sixteen to one gold would not go to the 
mint to be coined for less than its value and would 
retreat from circulation, diminishing it, and any person 
having silver, no matter what it cost, could compel the 
Government to coin it for him, stamping fifty cents worth 
of it a dollar worth ioo cents, and then make creditors 
taks it at the stamped value, with no guaranty of any 



208 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

value. To realize the enormous criminality of this prop- 
osition one needed to contemplate only the result to the 
millions of people in the country who had wages due or 
money out at interest, either in banks, insurance com- 
panies, building and loan associations, mortgages, notes, 
due bills, or accounts, the vast majority of our people 
being creditors, the banks, insurance companies, rail- 
road companies, etc., being the debtors. In the single 
state of New York at the time 1,700,000 depositors had 
$600,000,000 in the savings banks of that state, outnum- 
bering the electors in the commonwealth by 500,000. 

It was safe to calculate that if the Republican party 
declared for adhesion to the Gold Standard, and the 
Opposition should oppose it and advocate that of Silver, 
the discussions of the campaign would rally to the 
Republican ranks the labor, the business and the finan- 
cial interests of the country. Each of these desired the 
best money in the world. Gold was that, because it was 
invariable in value, everywhere receivable without dis- 
count, while silver was variable in worth, with a constant 
downward tendency. The laborer knew the difference 
just as well as the business man did, and he was even 
more particular about the quality of the money he 
received, as he was less able to afford risk. 

If the declaration honestly and manfully used the 
word Gold unequivocally, and the Opposition declared 
for Silver, the result would be that the old line Demo- 
crats would come over in a body to assist to keep the 
nation permanently on the basis whereon their party had 
originally placed it. 

Looking back, after five years' discussion of the money 
question, it may now be difficult to realize how original, 



PUBLIC SERVANT 209 

powerful and far-seeing this argument, given here only 
in the most abbreviate! form without any of the brilliant 
and interesting illustrations that accompanied it, then 
was. Educated, prominent men there were at the Con- 
vention who admitted that before hearing the Illinois 
argument, they had not known what sixteen to one meant, 
or the difference between a gold or silver certificate and 
an ordinary national bank note, supposing them all to be 
Government bills. 

It was the action of the Illinois delegates at the 
Springfield Convention, where they instructed for McKin- 
ley, that decided his nomination at St. Louis by assuring 
to him the needed votes there; and it was the work of the 
same delegates at St. Louis which made his election cer- 
tain by inducing the party to make the platform declara- 
tion that drew the majority of real Democrats in the 
country to his support 



14 



CHAPTER XXI. 



COOK COUNTY REPUBLICANS MISREPRESENTED— MADDEN's SACRI- 
FICE IN THEIR BEHALF — MARVELOUS 
PERSONAL VICTORY. 



AFTER the Cook County delegation was chosen to 
represent the Republican party at the nominating 
Convention to be held at St. Louis, it took action at its 
first assembly that has ever since been misunderstood 
and misrepresented. The false conception of what these 
men did was spread and denounced and came near dis- 
rupting the party in the state. 

The center of population had moved to a point in 
Indiana close to Chicago, and it was believed throughout 
the country that the action of Illinois would not only 
decide both Presidential nominations but determine the 
result of the election. It was largely owing to these 
considerations that both parties selected places near the 
center of population for holding their nominating con- 
venings, the Democratic at Chicago and the Republican 
at St. Louis. The contest for delegates was keen and 
thorough, each political organization doing all possible 
to have able and representative men selected. Cook: 
County was especially fortunate in the character of the 
delegates both parties obtained. The selection of the 
Republican deputies was completed in February, 1896. 
They were all able and strong men, reliably reflecting 
the political opinions and wishes of their respective con- 

210 



PUBLIC SERVANT 211 

stituencies. After they met and organized for work the 
question came up of aligning for the party nominee. An 
exchange of views revealed that the Republicans of the 
city, when the delegates were selected, had had no uni- 
fied sentiment as to the personality of the Presidential 
candidate, and had left the choice open to the judgment 
of the delegates. The revelation of this fact brought 
about discussion as to the best policy to adopt. These 
were strong men, and after a long argument, they con- 
cluded to not then commit the delegation to any nominee, 
and in all matters to act as a. unit. A ballot to that 
effect pledged the members to adhere to the unit rule in 
casting the vote of Cook County. 

Mr. Madden, in the controversy preceding the adop- 
tion of the unit rule, proposed that the whole vote of the 
county be pledged to the nomination of Mr. McKinley. 
The delegates, he pointed out, had absolute discretion 
in the matter, and to exercise it in the way he proposed 
would produce two results: first, it would have a decisive 
effect on the nomination, and, by giving the county and 
state the prestige of having settled the question, would 
assure both proper recognition in public affairs in the 
event of Mr. McKinley's election. Secondly, it would 
help the city and state in popular esteem, as, in his opin- 
ion, taking the country as a whole, the great majority of 
Republicans desired the Ohio man's nomination. This 
was quite evident from all the indications of the popular 
desire freely manifested during the past few months, 
although it might not appear in the election of the nomi- 
ating delegates so far chosen. 

Many constituencies favoring Mr. McKinley's nomi- 
nation beyond that of any other man so far deemed avail- 



212 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

able, had no doubt refrained from instructing their dele- 
gates for the reason that it was better to let them be free 
to take advantage of events that might occur under all 
the conditions possible during the many months before 
the final selection. No one who knew Chicago could 
doubt that the Republicans of several of the districts 
were practically unanimous for McKinley, although they 
had preferred to elect their delegates uninstructed. 

It did not seem to him possible that any other candi- 
date would appear in the next five months possessing 
McKinley's availability. He had studied the whole situ- 
ation as thoroughly as he could, and all things Republi- 
can had an ever-increasing tendency towards the nomina- 
tion of the man who in the public mind most certainly 
assured the restoration of Protection. The financial 
question then agitating all the people of the West had 
only &n indifferent and academic interest in the East. 
There the tariff question was the main topic of political 
controversy among the voters, among the people who 
made decisions at the polls. The great majority of men 
who earned their living in the Eastern States did it by 
work connected in some form with manufacturing. They 
were mostly idle or scantily employed and had been so 
for nearly four years. They knew why. Under the 
McKinley Bill they had had as much work as they could 
do at the best wages ever paid. Their idleness and pov- 
erty had come after the repeal of that bill, and, they 
knew, came as a result of that repeal. What these men 
and those depending on them for either support or 
business patronage wanted was a restoration of employ- 
ment. They knew the one way to get this was by 
re-establishing the protection of the McKinley Bill. They 



PUBLIC SERVANT 213 

all knew McKinley as the Legislator for Laoor — the 
Protectionist. They all identified McKinley with Pro- 
tection. All possible human effort could not succeed in 
identifying any other man in,the Republican party with 
the cause of Protection in the minds of the working- 
men as he was identified. He alone could draw from 
the Democratic party the tens of thousands of voters who 
were suffering from its free trade and longing for the 
days of the McKinley Bill. Without the aid of these 
Democratic votes the Republican party could not hope to 
carry the election. McKinley's nomination would assure 
success in the East; no other could. That being so, Cook 
County, which could settle the question, should not hesi- 
tate to make the decision. Such action would start the 
campaign immediately in the East and have success so 
assured there by the time the Convention met and rati- 
fied the action of Chicago, that thereafter effort could be 
confined to the West. There would be an immense 
advantage in that. 

But the West did not care about the tariff question, 
it was replied; it wanted the money question settled; 
how was McKinley identified with that? 

To this '.Mr. Madden responded that the West was as 
much interested as the East was in the restoration of 
Protection. While this did not appear to be the case 
just then, it nevertheless was the fact. The tariff ques- 
tion would grow in importance in the West as the cam- 
paign went on and might before election be the deter- 
mining issue even with the farmers. They were, it was 
true, just then absorbed in the financial controversy, 
but they would gradually lose interest in it. They could 
be convinced that their best customers were the workers 



214 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

of the East, and that the best way to restore prosperity 
to the farms was to restore employment to their penniless 
customers, through the tariff. The farmers would real- 
ize long before election that the money question had had 
nothing to do in causing the hard times, while the 
change in the tariff law had had everything to do in 
bringing them on; that the money of the country was 
precisely the same as it had always been; there had been 
no change at all in that, but there had been a disastrous 
change in the tariff. McKinley was as good a friend of 
silver as any public man was, and it could be made plain 
that the Republican party would do whatever could be 
done for silver, if there was any help for it at all, and 
that the Populists could not be trusted, either at home 
or abroad, to help any cause they advocated. The main 
thing was that McKinley was the most desired, the most 
available and the most attractive candidate in the 
Republican party, the one possessing the most enduring 
qualities for a nominee. With Cook County's delegates 
pledged to him, his nomination would be assured. He 
would get the nomination anyhow, in all probability, as 
the people were for him; but Cook County had it in its 
power to assure it to him then, and there was so much 
advantage, general and local, to be gained by doing it 
that wisdom urged the doing of it. 

This reasoning was done some time before the Ohio 
movement for McKinley had established official head- 
quarters in Chicago. All the Cook County men were 
McKinley men. History shows this to be a fact, not- 
withstanding all opinion to the contrary. The misun- 
derstanding was caused by the very loyalty of the men 
to one another and the sincerity of their efforts on the 



PUBLIC SERVANT 215 

party's behalf. They had agreed to act as a unit. There 
was not a man among them dishonorable enough to vio- 
late that compact, or even to try to. As time went on it 
became more and more evident that Illinois would decide 
the nomination. It likewise became manifest that the 
overwhelming sentiment of the party in the state was 
for McKinley. 

The Cook County men understood popular feeling as 
well as any politicians in the state; they were ail experts 
at the work of reading public sentiment. But these men 
knew, what many novices did not, that Illinois had more 
than once been betrayed in National Conventions; had 
several times delivered the deciding votes, the votes that 
either alone made the result or that, pledged, induced 
enough additions to make it, and had subsequently not 
received even the smallest reward of virtue — recogni- 
tion. The Chicago men had been made wary by their 
experience of Eastern party managers. They had 
become conservative. They saw no reason why if the 
party in Illinois had the power of nominating or defeat- 
ing the nomination of a Presidential candidate, it should 
not before delivering the votes obtain absolute assurance 
that in the successful candidate's administration it would 
have the representation due it, and not have its service 
credited to outsiders. Hence, it appeared better to have 
it known that the Illinois Republican delegates would at 
St. Louis be for McKinley without doubt, but would not 
deliver the party's vote in advance by a pledge that 
would shear the state's representation of power in the 
Convention. It would be better to deliver at St. Louis 
than at Springfield. At St. Louis the delivery could be 
made to the Republican party of the United States; at 



216 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Springfield it could not. At the latter place there might 
be some question of who delivered ; at St. Louis there 
could not be. 

This was the position taken by the Cook County men. 
Many of them did not favor taking it, for fear it would 
be misunderstood and do the party harm. These pointed 
out that demagogues might inflame the people with sug- 
gestions that it was an attempt to deliver for a vulgar 
consideration. The fact that a man like Madden was in 
this delegation would be enough to overthrow any suspi- 
cion regarding the absolute integrity of the body's action 
under any ordinary circumstances; but circumstances 
were not ordinary, and the Republicans of the state were 
beginning to get excited. Mr. Madden did all in his 
power to induce the delegation to refrain from taking 
this attitude and to come out flat-footed for McKinley, 
but in vain. The majority were against him. As the 
delegates were not instructed and were free, they had a 
perfect right to do as they did. The whole question was 
purely a political one of expediency. The majority voted 
against pledging for any but a state candidate and the 
unit rule bound all the members of the delegation to 
abide by the decision of the majority. 

Some time after the delegation had decided its atti- 
tude, the Eastern managers of Mr. McKinley's campaign 
invited Mr. Madden to a conference. He attended. 
They requested a comprehensive opinion of the party 
sentiment in Illinois. He told them it was practically 
unanimous for their candidate, but not organized. They 
asked him to undertake the work of organization. He 
told them he could not do so because of his obligation to 
his fellow members of the Cook County delegation and 



PUBLIC SERVANT 217 

then explained the situation in Chicago, with which the 
managers had been unacquainted. A long talk ensued. 
The Alderman made it plain that the Republicans of 
.Illinois were for McKinley, that he would get the vote of 
its delegation at St. Louis, but that the Cook County 
members were united against pledging and under the 
unit rule agreed to he was bound to act with them and 
would do so. He saw clearly what he was offered and 
what he was refusing, but declined to act except with his 
delegation so long as it held to the unit rule, to which he 
had agreed. When asked if the decision of the Chicago 
men might not be changed — the managers wanted a cer- 
tainty before reaching St. Louis — Mr. Madden frankly 
replied that he hoped so, and would do all in his power 
to have it altered, as he had all along done; but that 
until it was he would not be free to undertake the task 
of securing pledged delegates from the state for Mr. 
McKinley and would work in perfect accord with his 
delegation. 

No one acquainted with him would have for a moment 
thought that Mr. Madden would do anything else than 
he here did. His position was clearly defined and there 
was left no doubt about it. However, it alarmed the 
McKinley managers with dread that their candidate's 
prospects in Illinois were unsafe. A campaign was at 
once set on foot to arouse the country districts to over- 
whelm the Chicago delegates with public sentiment. A 
furor resulted which produced the intensest struggle for 
instructions that ever stirred the Republicans of the 
state. It immensely increased the McKinley sentiment, 
but did not break the solidity of the Cook phalanx — it 
rather compacted that. The more it became manifest 



218 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

that the country was a unit for McKinley's nomination, 
the more certain the majority of the Chicagoans grew 
that it would be a mistake to throw the party advantage 
away by pledging the vote ahead of delivery time. 
When the Springfield Convention met to decide on action 
at St. Louis the country delegates were in a fever of 
excitement lest the failure to pledge might endanger 
McKinley's chances at St. Louis by making it appear the 
party in the state of Illinois was not for him. They did 
not seem to know how solidly it was. Their uncertainty 
prevented them from organizing and as a mass unhesi- 
tatingly using the power they really had — it was suffi- 
cient to brush everything out of their way. The men 
from Chicago knew exactly how every delegate in the 
Convention would finally vote and were aware the other 
side had not sure knowledge on this point and could not, 
therefore, act with decision. They were solid themselves 
and sure of the state. So they threw themselves alto- 
gether and at once into the work of controlling the pro- 
ceedings, and, amidst the greatest excitement, to which 
they were used, kept the meeting busy with unessential 
actions, winning on every vote until they had almost 
convinced the majority that it was the minority in that 
assemblage; and were actually on the point of complete 
victory when a tactical error disclosed their strength. 
Then in a single clash they went down and pledging 
triumphed. 

In a flash, however, it was seen that all were equally 

good McKinley men, differing only on the one point of 

how best to place the party where it rightly belonged in 

national affairs. 

• The greatest individual victory obtained was on the 



PUBLIC SERVANT 219 

motion made by Mr. Madden to place the name of 
William Penn Nixon, editor of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, 
on the list of delegates-at-large in the place of the 
majority's candidate, who was an undoubted Gold man. 
The majority of the delegates were Gold men, and 
Mr. Nixon was known to be a Silver Republican. 
Mr. Madden was the very champion of Gold. But 
he had gone down with the minority, and when 
he stood up to make his argument he had to 
face fearful odds — the apparent desire of a triumphant 
majority to punish him for compelling it to fight for 
its life and the apparent inconsistency of the attitude 
he was taking. He had uttered but a sentence when 
every one present "desired to hear all he wished to 
say. Without the waste of a word, going at once to the 
marrow, he uttered such a speech as none but those there 
that day ever heard in a State Convention. Its steady fire 
burned ugly opposition away; its manly breadth capti- 
vated the house; the clearness of the argument and the 
eloquence of the plea aroused such feelings of justice 
that the audience turned clear about and gave the orator, 
whom when he rose it threatened to crush, when he sat 
down a larger majority than it had cast for instructions. 
For the latter the Convention had cast 755 votes, a major- 
ity of 1 75 ; for the orator's motion the house gave 840 ayes. 
When the life of this delegate is written the speech he 
delivered on that day will be read and placed alongside 
one delivered on a greater occasion by a Virginian 
named Patrick Henry. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



USES BLAINE'S RECIPROCITY ARGUMENT— MAKES NOVEL APPLICA- 
TION—EFFECT ON SILVER MEN. 



MANY of the arguments used by the Illinois delegates 
upon those from other states were singularly clever 
and statesmanlike. Some of them have never been sur- 
passed for real excellence. A number of the best have 
never been equaled in financial discussions. 

How wise was the platform declaration that the party 
would do all in its power to yet bring about an inter- 
national agreement in favor of the rehabilitation of 
Silver and its free and unlimited coinage at some fair 
ratio to be agreed upon, coupled with that other pro- 
nouncement in favor of a restoration of Protection and 
Blaine's Reciprocity Policy,is now plain to every observer. 
The wisdom of taking such action was equally well seen 
then by the moving spirits in the Illinois delegation. 
Mr. Madden all along urged that although the Gold men 
had no faith at all that the nations would agree to again 
make silver standard money, still it was the duty of this 
Government to use every effort it could honorably make 
toward inducing them to do so while there was a possi- 
bility of obtaining their consent. He himself did not 
believe that this country alone could by any means in its 
power maintain the double standard, nor did he think it 
could be supported by the combined action of all the 
nations. Still, there was a large number of Americans 

220 



PUBLIC SERVANT 221 

who thought otherwise, and they were entitled to just as 
much consideration as the citizens who agreed with him, 
so long as the opinion the latter held was not com- 
pletely demonstrated to be correct. While, therefore, 
any honest attempt to bring about the desired interna- 
tional agreement remained untried, the Government, he 
thought, was in duty bound to make it. The weapon of 
Reciprocity, he pointed out, had not yet been used. The 
friends of Silver were entitled to have it tried in their 
interest. If the Republicans won the election the old 
McKinley Law would be re-enacted, with such modifica- 
tions as the changed conditions called for, and it would 
contain the Blaine proposals. These were based on the 
sound principle that in business matters neither men nor 
nations will in all cases be fair toward one another vol- 
untarily, or unless induced or compelled to be. Mr. 
Blaine had seen, while acting as Secretary of State, that 
many American products were unfairly barred out of the 
markets of foreign nations whose people desired the 
goods. As a remedy, he conceived the law that empow- 
ered the President, by the quick and simple process of 
issuing a personal proclamation, to stop the sale in the 
United States of any product offered here from a country 
which unreasonably closed its doors to any branch of 
American trade. With this law in his hands it did not 
take Mr. Blaine very long to convince Germany that 
trichinae in American pork, and France that tuberculosis 
in American beef, were political diseases only, and 
unworthy of notice so long as these nations desired to 
sell sour wine and red water in the United States. The 
Reciprocity Law gave the American hog a ticket of gen- 
eral admission to Germany, and the American cow the 



222 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

right of excursion to France. Now, silver was an 
American product, and the same Blaine process might 
similarly help it. The friends of the metal were entitled 
to at least an experiment. 

• When Silver Republicans read the declaration they 
generally stayed where they were, feeling that, after all, 
if there was any hope for their metal it lay in Protection 
and remembering that the Free Trade of the other party 
had deprived Uncle Sam of the only weapon he had had 
with which he could in any wise help silver. The 
Democrats, who had taken away this instrument, would 
not restore it, but the Republicans would. When Mr. 
Bryan was nominated this. feeling was intensified by the 
fact that he was an out-and-out Free Trader and the recol- 
lection that as a member of the Congressional Ways and 
Means Committee he had been prominently instrumental 
in the work of repealing the McKinley Law. 

The wide influence of the Illinois argument which 
procured in the St. Louis platform the promise respect- 
ing silver, may be appreciated by a consideration of 
some of its immediate effects. Senator E. O. Wolcott, 
of Colorado, the strongest prominent Silver man in the 
Republican party, at once decided to remain in the 
ranks. He represented in the Senate the principal soft 
money state. All his investments were in silver proper- 
ties and all his constituents were for the white metal. 
He took the ground that the success of Democracy, with 
Free Trade, would destroy the last hope of the Silver 
movement, while the election of the Republican ticket 
and the consequent restoration of Protection, would 
assure the cause the full operation of the only chance it 
had left. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 223 

When Wolcott refused to bolt the action of the Con- 
vention and proclaimed adherence to the party on the 
platform adopted, * "There," said Madden to his col- 
leagues, "is a splendid justification of Mr. McKinley's 
silence on the financial question while he was a candi- 
date for the nomination. His refusal to officially attempt 
to influence the proceedings here has increased the 
party's confidence that he will, irrespective of his per- 
sonal views, honestly endeavor to carry out its expressed 
wishes. He will uphold the Gold standard adopted and 
he will do all that yet remains to be done for Silver. Wol- 
cott knows this and his action foretells what the majority 
of the Silver Republicans will do. They will remain in 
the party with the Colorado senator." 

McKinley's subsequent action in appointing a com- 
mission to sound the European governments on the ques- 
tion of restoring silver to standard coinage, and Wol- 
cott's appointment and service as a member of that body, 
were demonstrations complete not only of the party's 
sincerity, but of the President's loyalty to its instruc- 
tions. 

At a critical juncture in the campaign, Mr. Hanna 
selected two especially qualified men to place the Chi- 
cago argument before the people of California, where the 
Bryanese propaganda were sweeping everything away 
from Republicanism. These gentlemen attended to 
their business, and toward the end of October a halt 
came in the Golden State. The people saw that with 
Bryan President and Free Trade continued and increased 
there was not as much likelihood for international action 
favorable to Silver as there would be with McKinley and 
Protection. The Californians wanted both Silver and 



224 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Protection, but Protection more than Silver. With 
Bryan they might get Silver, but not Protection; with 
McKinley they were as likely to get Silver, but, as they 
said, "dead sure to get Protection/' So they "played 
for the double" and the state went Republican by about 
2,700 majority. At one of the meetings in that state, 
when the Republican argument, then first put forth in 
that part of the country, was finished, 180 of the auditors 
went forward, pulled the Silver buttons from their lapels 
and threw them upon the stage. 

All along, while engaged in the work of creating 
opinion among the delegates, Mr. Madden had urged the 
dissemination of this argument as the one that would not 
only hold the Silver Republicans, but eventually make of 
them, as the campaign progressed, the most effective 
orators against the straight-out Silver movement. Time, 
that reveals everything in its own season, has shown that 
he was right and that for the country it was fortunate he 
and men like him were right so early. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



BRYAN S NOMINATION A SURPRISE— FORCES CHANGE IN REPUBLI- 
CAN PLAN— THE EFFECT. 



WHEN the St. Louis Convention adjourned and the 
general exchange of views on the work done, 
which follows after such an assemblage, had taken 
place, two prevailing opinions were found to exist. One 
was that the platform afforded sufficient ground for the 
Gold Democrats to stand upon and that they might be 
expected to occupy it if their party fell under the control 
of the Populists at Chicago. The other was that the 
declaration of principles was unqualifiedly for Gold and 
tentatively only for Silver. This left the Silver men as 
a body out of consideration, at least until it could be seen 
what the Democratic Convention at Chicago would do. 

The result was the most bitter struggle ever witnessed 
in American political affairs for control of a nominating 
Convention. The old liners from the East attended in 
their fullest strength. The Populists came like an ava- 
lanche from the Far and Middle West. The struggle in 
the hotels, streets and Coliseum lobbies was unprece- 
dented, and when finally transferred concrete to the 
Auditorium was Babel megaphoned. The East, with its 
trained Convention leaders, its speakers of well-earned 
world-wide repute, and its master-hands at effective floor 
management, for a long time held the struggle well in 
their grasp. But when Bryan at last arose and in sublime 

16 225 



226 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

elocution phrased the popular suffering, discontent and 
despair; in language that inflamed put the blame for it 
all upon Eastern management of public affairs, and 
then, with the diction of a crusader and the passion of 
justice aroused, lifted clearly into view the country's one 
sole hope — Western party dominance — the bursting flood 
of Populism forced the gates and the deluge came. 
When it had spent its passion there was left visible 
hardly a fragment of the wreck of the old Democratic 
party, and a Populist orator was in its name nominated 
for the Presidency of the United States. 

"That nomination," exclaimed Madden, who was 
present when it was made, "is proof that the days of 
oratory are not passed, and that the printed word is not 
yet so effective as the spoken. Mr. Bryan came to the 
Convention on a newspaper correspondent's pass, and 
entered this hall as a contesting delegate, fighting for a 
seat. He leaves the Convention the Presidential nominee 
of the Democratic party. A single oration did it all. 
His address in type would hardly have won him a dele- 
gate: from his tongue it captured the Convention and 
brought him the Presidential nomination. Never before 
did oratory by a single effort accomplish anything com- 
parable to this achievement. It was done, too, in the 
most enlightened nation the world has yet had and 
among a people who are the greatest readers that have 
ever lived. The whole force of the Republican party, 
and the entire energy of the business, labor and property 
interests of the United States, will now have to be 
exerted to the fullest degree to overcome the effect of 
the oratory of one man. Contrast that use of the tongue 



PUBLIC SERVANT 227 

witfh any conceivable use of the pen. It will be a cam- 
paign of oratory." 

It was. The Republican party at one time during it, 
had more than 6,000 public speakers at work on the stump. 

After that the issue was quickly joined between Pop- 
ulism and Order, repudiation and wreckage and honor 
and patriotism. The Chicago Republicans made a canvass 
and found that hundreds of Democrats among the citi- 
zens and scores of the Convention attendants had 
renounced their party immediately after the platform was 
adopted. Their renunciation was open and irrevocable. 
Many of them unhesitatingly proclaimed their intention 
of supporting the Republican ticket. It was ascertained 
on closer inquiry that these, while naming Gold as the 
magnet, admitted that Protection was equally attractive, 
and, in many cases, more. The Cleveland management 
had opened their eyes to the viciousness of Free Trade. 
The press of the whole country reflected the general situ- 
ation the same as it appeared in Chicago. Great news- 
papers like the New York San, which took the lead, 
openly abandoned the Democratic party and advised 
their readers to support McKinley. 

It did not take the Chicago Republican leaders long 
to decide upon a course. The main issue was to be the 
money question with Protection its running mate. Men 
like Madden saw that up to that time their calculations 
had proven correct — the St. Louis platform had divided 
the Democratic party and would attract the Gold wing. 
But the Democratic movement towards Republicanism 
was so manifestly an Eastern movement, so palpably 
what Bryan would point to as a "Wall Street Octopus" 
combination, that it endangered the chances of maintain- 



228 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ing, let alone increasing, the cordial relations between 
the real Silver Republicans and the McKinley party in 
the West. In fact, for a while the open attitude of the 
great money interests threatened to alienate these men 
and more than offset the hard money gain. 

In addition to this difficulty, it was found practically 
impossible to poll the Gold Democrats. Politically, the 
Republican workers had no acquaintance with them like 
that with members of their own creed. The Gold Dem- 
ocrats did not attend Republican' meetings, join proces- 
sions, or place themselves where they could be counted. 
They succeeded through the press in spreading the con- 
viction that about all of them would support the Repub- 
lican candidate, but so long as they would not be 
counted, the McKinley workers felt as if the gain was 
all on paper. On the other hand, these managers per- 
sonally knew the Silver Republicans and could count 
them when absentees, either as deserters or on the fence. 
The situation was one in which the gain seemed conjec- 
tural, while the loss was accurately figurable. It was not 
encouraging, and it remained so for a long time. For 
weeks it looked as if every farmer in the Middle West 
was for Silver and Bryan. 

What made the situation more perplexing was the 
condition of the campaign literature. Mr. Madden had 
been for six years Chairman of the City Central Repub- 
lican Committee. In that capacity, with his accustomed 
energy, he had traversed every district in the county and 
most of those in the state. He knew the situation thor- 
oughly, as well as the people of the commonwealth, and 
realized completely the nature of what was to be done. 
The Republican party's state headquarters had been 



PUBLIC SERVANT 229 

kept open in Chicago for twelve months. In this time 
thousands of visitors from all parts of the West had 
called and thousands of letters arrived, all making 
enquiries on the money question. Such of these as 
were worthy of answer or capable of affording a sugges- 
tion had been preserved and annotated. Early in the 
spring political economists had been engaged to inspect 
this mass of interrogatories and prepare replies or 
answers. It was Mr. Madden's view that in this w T ay 
campaign literature might be produced in the most 
effective way, as it would meet the actual conditions 
which the enquiries disclosed. A great deal of sound 
and valuable campaign literature was the result. There 
had been no expectation that such a man as Mr. Bryan 
would be the Democratic nominee, and nothing had been 
prepared that fully met the condition his leadership pre- 
cipitated. Much of the literature had to be destroyed 
or left unused, and most of that used had to be revised. 
The work was rushed and the Illinois Committee was 
enabled to cover the whole ground with its own argu- 
ments, devised to exactly meet requirements, weeks 
before the National Committee opened its doors for work. 
The condition- in the state was so similar to that in the 
whole surrounding country that after the National Com- 
mittee began the task of issuing free books, pamphlets 
and leaflets, the Campaign Committees of seventeen states 
continued to get their supply from Illinois and to pay for 
it, all pooling the. expense, because most of the National 
body's productions had been prepared in the East, and 
did not at all supply what was needed in the West, while 
those furnished by the Illinois Committee did so com- 
pletely. The Chairman of the Illinois State Republican 



230 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Committee, Mr. Hitch, in a letter to the Republicans in 
New Jersey, and the Hon. John R. Tanner, the Repub- 
lican candidate for Governor of Illinois, in a communica- 
tion to the Chairman of the Pennsylvania State Republi- 
can Committee, both affirmed that the arguments framed 
and used by the Illinois managers had been so well 
adjusted to actual conditions that they had arrested the 
Free Silver tidal wave, turned it back, and secured the 
state, and most of its neighbors, in safety. Both letters 
were written early in August and both claimed that at 
that time Illinois would give at least 150,000 Republican 
majority. Mr. Hitch thought the figure might go much 
higher. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



ON THE STUMP — MANY NEW ARGUMENTS — THEIR HISTORICAL 

VALUE. 



BESIDES all his other work, Mr. Madden stumped the 
state, making sixty set speeches and innumerable 
private arid small talks. His great invention in argument, 
clearness in statement, and moral power in convincing 
and persuading changed votes wherever he spoke. 
The editors of the Republican literature, the members 
of the State Committee, the Chairmen of the local party 
organizations and electors everywhere throughout the 
state all testified that he furnished brains, arguments, 
motives, in every effort he made that year for the 
Republican cause. His premeditated statements were 
always new "and vote-making. His rejoinders to inter- 
rogatories, his personal colloquys with friends or strang- 
ers, on trains, in hotels, everywhere he went, were 
replete with original information and logic. They con- 
vinced, were remembered, gave auditors pleasure in 
repetition, and became current. It is doubtful if any 
one man ever added so much stock to good argument in 
any political campaign in this country. 

It seems almost preposterous to claim that anyone 
could add a thing new to the arguments for Protection, a 
subject discussed by Hamilton, Greeley and Blaine. Yet 
Mr. Madden has said many effective things on the tariff 
never uttered or hinted at by either Blaine, Greeley or 

231 



232 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Hamilton, and some of them are more original and con- 
vincing than anything either of the three ever said or 
wrote on the subject. After Sherman, McCleary, and 
other authorities, had apparently exhausted all the good 
arguments in favor of the Gold standard, and left to 
others the mere task of repetition, Mr. Madden entered 
the discussion and put into it keener ideas, better illus- 
trations, more lucid explanations and clearer history than 
had ever been used before, besides many entirely new 
arguments. 

His mental make-up, and the method he had used in 
educating himself, enabled him to easily and naturally 
lead in the work of that campaign scores of men who 
were decidedly his inferiors in everything but national 
reputations based on a mere fraction of his merit. Earn- 
ing his own living by day work at ten years of age and 
attending night school; laboring with his hands in youth 
and studying at evening colleges; graduating as the 
best engineer of his age in the city, and completing the 
study of law, while running a stone quarry employing 
scores of men; receiving private instruction from expert 
tutors for years while managing great business enter- 
prises; surrounding himself by careful readers of stand- 
ard literature and current publications during the time 
he was building up the vast business of the Western Stone 
Company; all his life attractive to educated and scholarly 
men because of his skillful queries and correct comment; 
business manager for great capital ; Chairman of many 
Boards of Directors in the most rapidly growing com- 
mercial city in the world; bank director; trustee of 
estates; representative of trade organizations in National 
conclaves; special deputy to Congress on Federal ques- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 233 

tions affecting the transportation interests of Chicago; 
municipal correspondent of the corporation with the 
thousands of mayors in the United States to induce 
them to make a Mayors' Day at the Columbian Exposi- 
tion; Chairman of the Committee to entertain distin- 
guished foreigners attending the Fair; employer of 2,000 
men: arbiter of labor disputes in the City of Strikes; 
Finance Minister of Chicago during the five years of 
colossal annexation and assimilation, each year finding 
ways and means to raise upwards of $20,000,000, and 
then seeing that that vast amount was correctly spent; — 
how many statesmen has the country ever had who pos- 
sessed at forty- one years of age so valuable an education 
for public life as Martin B. Madden possessed during the 
campaign of 1896? With a voice so pleasing that men 
would stop to listen to it for its sound alone, a figure like 
that of a Greek athlete, a head splendidly set, carrying 
a clean white face with nearly perfect features, and a 
covering like a first frost; with an established reputation 
for unassailable morality, absolute truthfulness, unques- 
tionable accuracy of statement; and known to be beyond 
most men in perception, wit, faculty of expression, 
abundance of exact knowledge, humanity, and affection 
for the public welfare: — it is not wonderful that large 
audiences assembled to listen to him, newspapers sought 
and published his views as campaign documents, party 
managers accepted his solutions of difficulties, friends 
took his guidance, acquaintances spread his opinions 
and electors asked him how to vote. 

Madden's speech is better and "quicker" than John- 
son's was, and if he had a Boswell posterity would pos- 
sess a better mine of mental nuggets. His brain seems 



234 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

an expression jewel factory. The gems come out com- 
pletely reduced and finished. He has put into circulation 
statements of public affairs that will live because of 
their unsurpassable compactness and completeness. His 
mental store is so inexhaustible that he doesn't tag its 
output, and it becomes common property. 

When asked what a Protective tariff was, he said it 
was the peddler's license collected at the Custom House. 
What a convincing argument there was in that. The 
peddler is not allowed to vend his wares in competition 
with the merchants of the town, who have similar things 
to sell and who by taxation maintain the walks, streets, 
lights, police, schools and courts of the place, unless he 
also pays taxes into the corporation's treasury. The 
sum he pays he does not add to the price of his wares. 
To sell them he must take the market price prevailing 
among the merchants against whom he is going to com- 
pete. He must sacrifice the sum of his license from the 
profits of his sales in that town and sell at a profit dimin- 
ished by that amount. The money hfc pays goes into 
the town treasury and diminishes by i.ts amount the 
taxes paid by the citizens. The peddler pays the license 
and the customers get their taxes reduced; not much if 
but one peddler come, but a great deal if many do. 
Surely, foreigners who sell competing articles in this 
country do the same kind of business the peddler does. 
They pay the license or tariff, subtract it from their 
profits, sell at the market at a profit diminished by the 
sum of the tariff, and reduce the taxation collected from 
the citizens by the amount the tariff puts into the Fed- 
eral treasury. 

When an orator paraphrased Lincoln's argument that 



PUBLIC SERVANT 235 

if we bought a ton of iron from England, we had the 
iron and England had the money; but if we bought a 
ton of iron made in our own country we had both the 
iron and the money, Madden added: "Yes, and we can 
then borrow the money at home." 

He favored Reciprocity that reciprocated. If but one 
country furnished an article our people desired and 
could not produce, he would let that in free; but if two 
or more countries produced such things, he would let 
them in free from those countries only that would admit 
an equivalent amount of our products free. He opposed 
a tariff so high as to induce foreigners to move their 
plants here while the owners remained abroad, because 
that would create a drain similar to the foreign landlord 
drain on Ireland. He would not remove the tariff on 
manufactures no longer needing it. That would be like 
destroying the cradle after the first baby had learned to 
walk. Every penny you took off a tariff on competing 
products was, in his opinion, a penny bonus given to the 
foreign competitor. He would use it to undersell you. 
Underselling you by the amount of the reduction might 
be disastrous to you, but it would cost the foreigner 
nothing. No protective tariff had ever been given in 
this country in the interest of capital; it had always been 
levied to protect labor. It had generally been fixed at 
the supposed difference between the cost of labor here 
and in Europe. It had seldom been put so high as that 
difference, and as a result manufacturers here had been 
obliged to carry on business at a profit less than that of 
their European rivals by an amount exceeding the tariff. 
In nearly every case the difference between the cost of 
the American labor engaged in the manufacture of a 



236 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

thing and that of the foreign workmen employed in mak- 
ing the same thing exceeded the amount of the duty on 
that thing. This was easily demonstrated and showed 
that in all competing manufactures the American artisan 
got in his wages more than all the tariff. If this were 
made plain to all American workingmen they would all 
be Protectionists. In all cases where Protection, by 
increasing competition, reduced prices, the consumers 
got more benefits than the manufacturers could possibly 
retain. Steel rails, when England had a monopoly of 
their manufacture, cost as high in this country as $167 a 
ton. The ad-valorem duty of about $47 a ton, which 
enabled our manufacturers to compete, had resulted in 
competition and improvement in processes that had 
brought the price below $30 a ton. The difference of 
$137 per ton, upon the two or more million tons used in 
this country every year, had gone to the public in 
improved railroad service, reduced fares and lessened 
freight charges. The sum total given to the public 
through the tariff on steel rails was so enormous as to 
make the profits still retained by the manufacturers look 
ridiculous in comparison. A protective tariff seldom, if 
ever, raised the cost of a competing article. Asa rule it 
lowered it and improved the quality: first, by increasing 
the competition; second, by stimulating improvement in 
the methods of manufacture to reduce their cost as com- 
pensation for loss of price. 

The Harvey statement that the Act of 1873 had 
stopped the coinage of silver and by doubling the 
work of gold had made of the gold dollar a two-dollar 
dollar, was disproved by this ingenious retort from Mad- 
den; "Have you a silver dollar? If you have, look at 



PUBLIC SERVANT 237 

the date upon it. You will find that that date is of some 
year since 1873, the time Harvey says we stopped coin- 
ing silver. Every person in this audience who has a sil- 
ver dollar has in his possession a proof that what the 
Silverites say is not true, that the coinage of silver was 
stopped by conspiracy in 1873, f° r every one of these 
dollars which you have, or can get, was coined in some 
year since 1873. I will give $5 apiece to any of you for 
every silver dollar you may bring to me that was coined 
before that year. These dollars in your possession are 
proofs that all the silver dollars now in circulation have 
been coined since the time the Silverites say we stopped 
coining silver, and you cannot produce a single silver 
dollar coined before that time, not one minted during 
what Harvey calls the period of free and unlimited coin- 
age. The fact is, that all the silver in circulation has 
been coined since 1873, and that during these twenty- 
three years, in which Harvey says silver coinage has 
been stopped, there have been put into circulation about 
560,000,000 silver dollars against the 10,000,000 minted 
during the eighty-one years of free and unlimited coin- 
age before. 

4 * Bryan says the gold dollar has doubled in value and 
is now a two-dollar dollar. Here are 100 pennies. We 
began coining gold and silver in 1792, 104 years ago. 
During every one of these 104 years these 100 pennies 
would buy all the gold there is in a gold dollar. At no 
time in all these years would the gold in a gold dollar pur- 
chase more than 100 pennies, nor would less pennies buy 
the gold. The 100 pennies will to-day buy a gold dollar. 
So, % the gold dollar is a dollar dollar, and not a 200-cent 
dollar, as Bryan says, and it has not varied a penny in 



238 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

value for 104 years. The unchangeable value of gold is 
the quality that makes it the best money for everybody, 
the laborer as well as the capitalist. Twenty-three years 
ago these 100 pennies would not buy the silver in a sil- 
ver dollar; it took 104 pennies at that time to buy that 
much silver. Since then so much silver has been found 
and mined that the metal has fallen in value because too 
plentiful. To-day the amount of silver in a dollar will 
not buy 104 cents, the amount it was worth in 1873. 
It will, only bring 47 cents. So silver has fallen 53 per 
cent, in twenty-three years, while gold has not varied one 
per cent, in value in 104 years. That is why every civ- 
ilized nation has discarded silver as standard money ; it 
lacks all stability in value and is the worst money in the 
world for both the people who must work for wages and 
those who handle any kind of capital." 

4 'What will you say," Madden was asked, "to the 
contention that silver was demonetized in 1873?" 

"That it was not. In that year we were still paying in 
paper promises. These had been at a discount because 
of the world's disbelief in our ability to redeem them in 
specie. When our ability to redeem approached par we 
decided to resume specie payments at a fixed date ahead. 
This decision constituted the Act of 1873, which set the 
date at 1879 and named gold as the kind of specie we 
would pay in. We had the right to elect either kind of 
specie — silver or gold. Both were American products, 
but the latter we had in greater abundance, and with us 
it was the cheaper. The amount of gold in a dollar was 
obtainable for less than the silver in a dollar. Besides, 
gold had become the standard money of the civiHzed 
world because of its invariability in value and its 



PUBLIC SERVANT 239 

universal acceptability. The Act of 1873 had been before 
Congress for three years and had beeil fairly, fully and 
publicly discussed before it was passed. At that time it 
was probable that we could get to the mint all the gold 
we needed for resumption, and it was probable that we 
could not get enough silver. The legal ratio between 
the metals for coinage purposes was sixteen to one. 
That is, the law said that at the mint gold was worth 
sixteen times its weight in silver. The truth was that 
silver was worth more than a sixteenth of its weight in 
gold; it was worth about one and a half fifteenths. The 
disparity between the commercial value of silver and the 
legal ratio had existed ever since the Democratic party 
had fixed the legal ratio at sixteen to one in 1834, and 
during all that time had practically kept the silver dollar 
out of general circulation and the country on a gold basis. 
During this period the owners of silver refused to have 
it coined into dollars for circulation because the law 
called for more bullion in the dollar than the dollar was 
worth. The amount of silver it took to make a dollar 
was during these forty- three years often worth 104 cents, 
and the only silver owners that would, as a rule, give 
104 cents' worth of silver bullion to the mint for silver 
dollars worth 100 cents were the jewelers without smelt- 
ers who wanted their metal turned into sterling for plate 
and were willing to pay that premium to the Government 
for doing the smelting. Silver dollars obtained this way 
sometimes escaped the melting pot and got into circula- 
tion, but they were practically the only ones that did. 
During the eighty odd years of 'free and unlimited' coin- 
age of silver hardly 10,000,000 silver dollars were 
coined. The silver dollar had retreated from circulation 



240 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

and could not be induced back unless we paid for it more 
than it was worth according to law. The gold dollar 
could be had for ioo cents. It was accepted for the work 
of redemption. It would have been unwise to do any- 
thing but what we did in 1873. We did not then demon- 
etize the silver dollar. That was done in 1834. We 
simply exercised the option we had of resuming specie 
payments in gold dollars worth par or silver dollars 
worth a premium, and decided on the par dollars/' 

44 I'm for Bryan," said an Irish Republican, "because 
when he's in I'll get sixteen for one." 

4 'That's not as much as you're getting now, Pat," 
retorted Mr. Madden. 

44 Oh, it's sixteen times more." 

44 No, it isn't, Patrick. You now get thirty-two for 
one. Bryan's sixteen for one is only half of your thirty- 
two for one." 

^ 4 How do you argue that, now?" 

44 It is the gold and silver ratio question. If you work, 
and get, we'll say, an ounce of gold, you can take that 
ounce of gold and sell it anywhere in the world for 
thirty-two ounces of silver, because everywhere gold is 
w r orth thirty-two times its weight in silver. That is what 
is meant by thirty-two to one. Now, if Bryan should be 
elected he'll be for only sixteen to one. His scheme is 
to make gold worth only sixteen times its weight in 
silver instead of thirty-two times as it is now. So, 
Patrick, if Bryan wins you will only get sixteen ounces 
of silver for your ounce of gold instead of the thirty-two 
you can get now. You will then get only half as much 
as you can get now." 






PUBLIC SERVANT 241 

"That looks like a bunco game, Mr. Madden, on me. 
I'll not be for it." 

The cleverest rejoinder made in the whole campaign 
to one of Bryan's sophistries was the following: "You 
ask me to vote for Bryan because if he be elected he will 
establish the ratio of sixteen to one as the ratio of value 
between gold and silver. The ratio is at present thirty- 
two to one. I can now take my gold anywhere and get 
for it thirty-two times its weight in silver. Under 
Bryan's plan 1 would get only sixteen ounces of silver for 
my ounce of gold. That is but half of what I can now get. 
How would I gain by Bryan's election? It seems to me 
I would lose exactly half the present value of my gold. 
You say that if Bryan be elected his policy will increase 
the value of silver until sixteen ounces of it will be 
worth as much as thirty-two are now. I am at thirty- 
two now. If I go to sixteen, as Bryan wishes, what 
guarantee have I that he will be able to bring me back to 
thirty-two. Even if he can do what he says and double 
the value of silver, it would be better for me to remain 
where I am, for that would make my thirty-two ounces 
worth sixty-four, whereas if I went to sixteen I would 
only be back to thirty-two, where I started." This 
juggle never failed during the campaign to dislodge any 
Bryanite who had to encounter it, and it usually con- 
vinced an audience that the sixteen to one argument was 
evidence of brain ailment. 

When the non-committal attitude of Mr. McKinley 
on the question of the money standard was pointed out 
to Mr. Madden at St. Louis before the Convention 
assembled, he replied: "Mr. McKinley's genius lies 

16 



242 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

in the representativeness of his character. In this he 
surpasses any man who has been named for the Presi- 
dency in the past forty years. He has personal views of 
great value on all public questions, but he is too honest, 
so long as the public regard him as a national represent- 
ative of Republican sentiment, to put his views forward 
until they are the views of his party. Absolute political 
integrity demands just such conduct on the part of rep- 
resentative party men. Party sentiment is the composite 
result of the pooling of the views of all its members. 
When a man is chosen either by election or selection to 
represent the views of his party and he assents to the 
task, he is in honor bound to refrain from making public 
political statements at variance with the expressed atti- 
tude of his party. The Republican party has not yet 
declared for either gold or silver. When it does declare 
its position, you will find that Mr. McKinley will have 
enough to say; and you will also find that all he shall 
say will correctly reflect the sentiment of his party. So 
long as he remains a public representative of the Repub- 
lican party, he will represent it with strict accuracy; he 
will not try to lead it or to push it. If he be elected 
President by the American people, he will correctly 
ascertain their wishes, and then carry them out. In 
neither case will he attempt individuality. He will be 
exclusively representative. He is too honest to accept 
any representative position for the purpose of exploiting 
either his personal views or his personal ambitions, or 
doing anything else than carrying out the known wishes 
of those who trust him in a representative way/' 



CHAPTER XXV. 



URGED TO ACCEPT SENATORSHIP FROM ILLINOIS — REASONS THERE- 
FOR—NECESSARY VOTES SECURED. 



THE national election in 1896 made Illinois Republi- 
can by over 150,000 majority. The Legislature 
elected that fall assured the choice in January, 1897, of 
a Republican to represent the state in the United States 
Senate in the place of the Hon. John M. Palmer, Dem- 
ocrat, whose term expired on the 4th of March following. 
The party organization was thorough and retained its 
headquarters in Chicago, where it had performed won- 
derful work in the McKinley campaign. The leaders 
started out to obtain the best possible candidate to act as 
colleague to Senator Shelby M. Cullom. After a critical 
survey of the situation they asked Mr. Madden to permit 
his name to go before the Legislature for the place. He 
had accomplished so much creditable work at the St. 
Louis Convention and on the stump during the canvass, 
that there was a general expression among party men in 
all parts of the state in favor of his candidacy. He was 
sent for and invited to a conference, where the organiza- 
tion's desire was made known to him. He hesitated a 
long time. He was weary from overwork in the City 
Council and had large financial interests intrusted to his 
care. One of these, the Western Stone Company, of which 
he was President, had, through its Board of Directors, 
requested him to abando'n public life and devote his 

243 



244 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

efforts to the farther development of the stone trade. 
This concern was paying him a large salary, one of the 
largest received by any Western business manager, and 
was entitled to first consideration. To accept the party's 
proposition involved the abandonment of this and other 
incomes, amounting to many tens of thousands of dollars 
a year — a great sacrifice for a man not yet forty-two 
years old. He asked if some other equally suitable can- 
didate could not be found whose acceptance would not be 
at such a great personal loss as he was asked to incur. 
To this the managers replied that the Republican organ- 
ization desired to send to the assistance of President 
McKinley in the terjible ordeal he was about to go 
through the most efficient man the state could yield 
through the party. The new Senator, it was pointed 
out, should be young and able to withstand great labor. 
He should be experienced and capable in legislative and 
committee work ; able in speech and with the pen ; pos- 
sess talent for stating with power and effect the argu- 
ments the Republicans of Illinois believed should influ- 
ence impending congressional action; be thoroughly 
acquainted with the people of Illinois and of Chicago, 
and with their views on the public questions pressing for 
settlement; entirely reliable as an exponent of the 
wishes of the people of the state ; able financially to go 
as the commonwealth's representative at Washington, 
and known to all the people as a public servant tested and 
found competent and trustworthy. The state and county 
and city committees had gone all over the subject and 
decided upon him, and the request to seek the nomina- 
tion was put to him as a matter of public duty. 

Still hesitating, Mr. Madden asked if he was the 



PUBLIC SERVANT 245 

first choice of the organization. He was assured he was. 
Then he asked if there was any other choice. There 
was not, he was answered. 

"One other question/' he persisted; "is there a sec- 
ond choice?" 

"Why do you ask that?" the spokesman for the party 
managers rejoined. 

"Because," the Alderman said, "a second choice may 
be a first choice under cover." 

Assurance was given to him that there was no second 
choice, nor any other choice but himself — he was the sole 
choice, and he was urged to accept the task of seeking 
the election as a matter of duty. He consented. 

His canvass of Cook County showed him that the assur- 
ances given to him by the managers were sound — all the 
twenty-one members of the county in the Legislature 
readily pledged their votes to him. A tour of the state 
was then made. It resulted in securing the pledged 
votes of fifty-one more members of the Legislature. Mr. 
Madden now had seventy-two votes. It required sixty- 
three only to get the party caucus nomination and a,s a 
result the election. 

Matters remained in this shape until the Legislature 
met. When it convened the Alderman went to Spring- 
field and found the seventy-two votes awaiting him and 
ready to be cast for him as soon as the task of electing 
the United States Senator should be reached. 

The work he had done in making the canvass for these 
votes was very difficult and wearisome. It was accom- 
plished with so little fuss and its result was so complete 
that it should not excite wonder if there were men who 



246 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

imagined they could also have performed it, or could 
even undo it in their own interest. 

It was not long before tale-bearers began to carry 
suspicions to Mr. Madden. The purport of most of 
these was that some of the party managers were so 
pleased at the practical unanimity among the Republican 
members of the Legislature that they saw a lessening of 
the necessity for the making of such a sacrifice as going 
to Washington would entail on the President of the 
Western Stone Company; and that the financial interests 
in Mr. Madden's care could not afford to lose his services 
at the time. To all this gossip the Alderman turned a 
deaf ear. "Have you no suspicions?" he was asked by a 
friend. "None whatever," was the response; "they are 
unhealthy and I ara immune from them." 

Before the day of the balloting some of the managers 
requested the Alderman to attend a conference. At this 
he was told that an investigation of the pledge list 
showed that he had lost voters enough to endanger his 
chances. Demanding to know how many had proved 
recalcitrant, he was informed twelve had, and their names 
were furnished. He went out and reinstated his list. 
More than once he did similar reinstatement work. The 
senatorship was a great prize and many powerful men 
were straining after it. Madden expected this. The 
office was not his. It belonged to the people of Illinois, 
who were about to bestow it through the Republican 
party. It would go to the man who could induce the 
party to give it to him. 

At length the managers informed the Alderman that 
it had been decided after much controversy on the 
ground that a new candidate was desirable for party 



PUBLIC SERVANT 247 

expediency — to adjust differences that otherwise might 
prove disruptive — and he was asked to release the votes 
pledged to him. When the matter was put to him in 
that way he did not haggle ; he yielded as a matter of 
course. 

The release at once scattered the Cook County mem- 
bers. The result was a scramble. It became impossible 
for the managers to reconcentrate the votes necessary to 
elect. The Cook County members would unite for any 
other candidate the managers should designate, but the 
country members under no circumstances would. The 
majority of the seventy-two were, however, in favor of a 
Chicago candidate, the country having a representative in 
Mr. Cullom, whose home was in Springfield. 

The disorder continued, Mr. Madden having practi- 
cally retired as a candidate. The Chicago delegation, 
having gone away from him, with his permission, 
remained pledged to their second choice. He was unable 
to induce his followers from the country to go in a body 
to any other candidate, although they all favored the 
election of a Chicago man. A majority of them were 
willing to vote for Mr. William E. Mason, but for no 
other Cook County man, except Mr. Madden. As 
Mason could be elected with these votes, and no other 
candidate could get them or be elected without them, 
they were permitted to go to him, and he was elected. 

It is well known that Mr. Madden has made it a rule 
never to indulge in any kind of gossip; never to reply to 
criticism upon his personal conduct; and never to impugn 
the motives of an acquaintance, especially a friend. He 
has always seemed to regard his failure to be elected 
Senator in 1897 with indifference. But he discusses it 



248 MARTIN B.. MADDEN 

with complete frankness. He says that the gentlemen 
who induced him to become a candidate were all friends, 
and are still. 

When they secured his consent to be a candidate he 
was absolutely their only choice. He never ceased to be 
their personal choice. Even when they asked Jiim to 
step aside for another candidate they would have pre- 
ferred him as Senator. What they then attempted was 
tried for the party's welfare, and as an expedient 
thought necessary. The tactics might have been a mis- 
take; it was no more, even if that. His friends, he 
claims, were acting for the best interests of the party, as 
he was, and he spurns all suggestion that there was any 
lack of either good faith or loyalty on their part towards 
him in any part of the proceeding. 

The Republicans of the state were keenly disappointed 
over the retirement of Mr. Madden. He was looked 
upon as an ideal man to represent Illinois in the United 
States Senate in the period of American commercial 
development then felt to be imminent and which has 
since come. It was taken for granted that he would 
from the first rank as one of the greatest committeemen 
and staters of public questions ever sent to the Senate. 
But there could be no criticism of his attitude: "I am 
for the man the people of Illinois want, whether that be 
myself or some other. I stood for the place only while 
I had official assurance that I was the candidate the peo- 
ple desired ; I retired the moment I was made aware the 
people wished somebody else. " 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



GOES TO PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION— REPRESENTS ILLINOIS ON 
PLATFORM COMMITTEE. 



ONE of the most remarkable instances in American 
political history of the influence of a single state 
delegation on the conduct of a national party, occurred 
through the action of the Illinois men who represented 
their state in the Republican Convention at Philadelphia 
in June, 1900. Although the act was of world-wide 
importance, although it conserved the friendship of one 
of the great nations for this country and saved the dom- 
inant party from committing a political blunder as well 
as an international offense, it was done so quietly and 
effectively as to escape the observation of all but the 
very few who of necessity were cognizant of the sanc- 
tuary proceedings. 

Illinois had been the battleground of the campaign 
of 1896. Everyone well informed respecting public 
affairs realized that the state would again be the chief 
theater of the struggle in 1900. She is the heart of the 
great Middle West, and her pulsations affect decisively 
the political health and activity of all those great sur- 
rounding commonwealths, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. 

The Illinois men went to Philadelphia with full intelli- 
gence of the popular feeling of this immense region on 

249 



250 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

all living public questions, and determined on having 
this feeling secure adequate influence in the policy of the 
Republican party. 

When the delegates from all the states and territories 
had arrived and exchanged views preparatory to conven- 
ing for official work, it was found that, outside of the 
Middle West, there existed a dangerous sureness of vic- 
tory and a corresponding indisposition to work out any 
detailed and comprehensive plan of campaign. The 
drift was towards a cut-and-dried programme. In fact, 
most of the delegates seemed disposed to treat the Con- 
vention as a sort of re-union, and to expect to simply 
ratify, without investigation or criticism, any policy pre- 
sented by those in official charge of the proceedings. 
The situation was dangerous politically, for no matter 
how careful and conscientious the members of an Admin- 
istration may be, it is simply impossible for them alone 
to draft a statement of a policy for national party action 
which will be as comprehensive and popular as a plat- 
form that is the outcome of the exchanged thought of the 
delegates representing every part of the country and all 
its needs and aspirations. 

The most serious peril that threatened the party in 
power, however, was the uncertain attitude of the old 
line Democrats. Any just analysis of the vote cast in 
1896 showed that Mr. McKinley's election was mainly, if 
not wholly, due to the support of the Jeffersonians and 
Jacksonians. These patriotic men were unwavering- 
believers in the principle of the Gold Standard, in the 
policy of expansion, and in the duty of upholding the 
integrity of the Federal Courts. Their faith was a mat- 
ter of fiber in their mental make-up; a matter of political 



PUBLIC SERVANT 251 

heredity developed through several generations. They 
claimed, and rightly, that Jefferson made it possible for 
the country to grow with its requirements when he intro- 
duced the policy of Expansion into American affairs by 
the Louisiana Purchase; that Jackson had put the 
Republic on the gold basis; and that the Federal Judi- 
ciary was the very child of Democracy and the apple of its 
eye. When the crowd without political ancestry obtained 
control of the party organization at Chicago, in 1896, 
nominated Mr. Bryan as a Democrat, and proclaimed 
the platform attacking all their cherished political prin- 
ciples, these Jefferson and Jackson men abandoned the 
organization in a body. They would have formed a 
great third party but for their conviction that it was their 
duty to stamp Populism out of political affairs by the 
most available means at hand. When they realized that 
the Republicans were sincerely advocating real Demo- 
cratic principles, especially those of Sound Money, 
Expansion and Conservation of the powers of the Federal 
Courts, they gradually, but without effort at recognition, 
went over to the Republican ranks and gave them the 
numerical strength needed for victory. 

It cannot be denied, however, that in 1900 the Dem- 
ocrats had not been satisfied entirely with Republican 
management. The conviction had grown among them 
that it would be better to reorganize the old party. A 
powerful general movement towards this had com- 
menced. It had been materially helped by the Corbin- 
Miles affair, in which, the Democrats believed, the man- 
agement of the Spanish War had been taken away from 
the competent commanding general and placed in the 
hands of a bureau chief as an act of personal favoritism ; 



252 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

by the Alger matter, by the Porto Rican tariff tangle, 
the management in Cuba, the protracted fighting in the 
Philippines, and the continually recurring controversy 
over the Sampson-Schley dispute. A conviction had spread 
that the Republicans, instead of appreciating the value of 
Democratic aid, were averse to permitting any Democrat 
to obtain a career or achieve popular distinction. 

It is now apparent that if the Democrats had got 
together again and put up an old line man of character 
and ability at Kansas City, the result of the election in 
1900 might have been different. It seems now as if the 
Republican party could not have successfully withstood 
the defection. This, at least, was the prevailing belief 
among the Democrats throughout the South, East and 
Middle West. How strong this belief was, and what a 
powerful inspiration it afforded, was shown when at 
Kansas City it appeared for a while possible to nominate 
David B. Hill instead of Bryan. The Convention simply 
went wild with delirious hope ; the cheers for the New 
Yorker at one of his appearances lasted in full volume 
for fifteen minutes. If that nomination had gone to 
Hill, the Republicans would not have been able to use 
any of the arguments which made them so strong before 
the people in the following campaign. The Democrats 
would have had the arguments, and the Republicans 
would have been on the defensive from start to finish, 
with master hands keeping them explaining. 

Many students of public affairs contend that if Tam- 
many Hall had supported Hill at Kansas City he would 
have been nominated. Mr. Croker, while entertaining 
in London a friend of the writer, a short time before the 
Kansas City Convention, freely discussed the political 



PUBLIC SERVANT 253 

prospects. He seemed to entertain the belief then that 
his party could win in the fall of 1900 if it could nomi- 
nate a Democrat "and at the same time make the plat- 
form Democratic." Otherwise, he preferred to have the 
Republicans retain the management of the Government, 
rather than have the Populists get it. He was asked what 
his policy would be in case he found at Kansas City 
that it w T ould not be possible to secure a Democratic plat- 
form. His reply indicated that in that event Tammany 
would prevent the nomination and sacrifice of a real 
Democrat, and welcome a defeat so disastrous that it 
would result in the total elimination of Mr. Bryan from 
Democratic politics. He added: "The best thing then 
would be to let them make a platform as bad as possible; 
the worse the better." 

The Illinois men had thoroughly informed themselves 
about the trend of affairs in the Democratic party and 
were amazed at the lack of knowledge respecting it 
among many of the Eastern, Southern and Western dele- 
gates. They set themselves to the task of arousing their 
colleagues to proper appreciation of the real condition and 
to the work of correcting it so far as lay in their power. 

With characteristic energy they quickly formed a sort 
of "steering committee." This was composed of such 
men as Mr. Cannon, member from the Dansville district 
and Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, 
Congressman Reeves, of La Salle, and men like these, 
who had been especially active in all the congressional 
detail work appertaining to the conduct of the Spanish 
War, and knew the needs of the Middle West. These 
gentlemen, as Mr. Cannon expressed it, "went on a cate- 
chising expedition," for the purpose of finding a dele- 



254 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

gate "well-up" on the questions of the day, especially on 
those respecting the Inter-Oceanic Canal, Labor, and 
Currency, to act for the Middle West on the Committee 
on Resolutions. The inquisitors put many a strong man 
through what the Appropriations Chairman described as 
a "course of sprouts. " Finally, they applied the cate- 
chism to Mr. Madden, who was one of the Chicago dele- 
gates. "He is our man," said Cannon, "he knows more 
than any other man we've met about the whole situation. 
Where he ever learned it all, I can't even guess. But 
he has the knowledge. What's more, he possesses the 
faculty of irresistible statement. What's even better yet, 
he has the energy and force of character to accomplish. 
He knows things; can get at things; can do things. He 
is our man." 

The result was that Mr. Madden was unanimously 
deputed by the Illinois delegates to represent their state 
in the Committee on Resolutions. He accepted the 
task, realizing fully what he was expected to do. 

At the very first session of the committee it was 
ascertained that the party managers, having failed to 
induce any specialized action on the part of any of the 
leading delegates, had prepared a programme and had 
done the best in their power. But, as good as was their 
work, it was not of the representative and comprehensive 
character which the Illinois delegate thought the situa- 
tion demanded. It took but a few words to impress this 
upon all the members of the committee, and they went 
to work and framed a fresh platform covering the whole 
ground anew, each member phrasing the part his espe- 
cial ability qualified him the best to indite. The result 
was what is by many conceded to be the best platform 
ever enunciated by the Republican party. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

WRITING THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM FOR I9OO — INSERTS THE 
WORD ISTHMIAN— SECURES FAIR PLAY FOR FRANCE. 



THE Inter-Oceanic Canal question was the one the Mid- 
dle West was most interested in. If matters had 
been allowed to drift as they were going at first, the party 
would have been committed in its declaration of prin- 
ciples to a specific route, as a rich company of Americans 
interested in that route had been skillfully exploiting it. 
Mr. Madden had all along been opposed to this as a 
National policy, and he had done all in his power, while 
engaged in the work of forming public opinion, to pre- 
vent it. 

His argument was substantially as follows: 
He was in favor of the better route of the two. If 
other routes should be discovered he would be in favor 
of the best. The main thing was to get a canal across 
the Isthmus. It would expedite American international 
trade, keep down transportation charges across the coun- 
try, and give us the use of our entire navy for the pro- 
tection of either of our coasts. Hitherto, our navy had 
been considered mainly an Eastern defense. Now that 
the Chinese territorial and trade questions' were being 
^pressed upon the world, our Pacific coast was becoming 
equal in importance to our Atlantic in the matters of use 
and necessity of defense. The canal problem had ceased 
to be solely one of trade — of shortening distance to and 

255 



256 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

from markets, and regulating- and lessening transporta- 
tion charges. It was now chiefly a question of national 
boundary. 

The Nicaragua line might be the best. The Amer- 
ican syndicate exploiting it insisted it was. We natur- 
ally hoped our men were right. A commission was now 
on the ground examining into that phase of the question. 

The science of French engineering, on the other hand, 
had decided that the Panama route was better. The 
French route was shorter, and, with ample means, might 
afford a waterway without locks, and wholly on tide 
level. This, the Nicaragua could not do. The latter, 
besides, was said to be subject to volcanic upheavals. 
These occurred sometimes in Lake Nicaragua. They 
would be a menace to the channel, and might make it 
impassable to our ships during a foreign war, rendering 
the whole canal useless in a crisis. 

He did not say he took stock in these or any other 
arguments against the Nicaragua route. He simply 
stated them as they were made. If the Republican party 
should be tied to the project of the Nicaragua route and 
then should elect its ticket, and in carrying out the 
party's pledge the second Administration of Mr. McKinley 
should construct the canal across Nicaragua, what would 
the country say if events should prove the instability of 
the route? Especially if France should have gone on and 
finished the Panama Canal? 

No one could doubt that the French would build the " 
Panama Canal if we did not. They would do so even if 
we should construct a waterway across Nicaragua. They 
would do this because they were committed to the task, 
had faith in the route as the best and had invested a 



PUBLIC SERVANT 257 

couple of hundred millions in the work. They were cer- 
tain that if both canals should be completed, the Panama 
would be more used by the world than the Nicaragua, 
because shorter, cheaper and safer. 

If we committed ourselves to the Nicaragua, the 
French would not retreat from the Panama. Our action 
would then simply bring about the construction of two 
canals, as the Panama would unquestionably be built. 
In that event, the Isthmus of Panama would always be a 
theater of international rivalry, misunderstanding and 
complication. 

With two Isthmian canals in operation, the United 
States would possess no advantage not possessed by our 
rivals and even by our enemies. With but one canal, our 
proper dominance on this continent would remain unim- 
paired and unimperiled. 

France simply insisted that a canal be built across the 
Isthmus along the best way, which she claimed was the 
Panama route. She would rather have the United States 
build it than have any other power do it, even herself. 
She stood ready to yield her place and all her rights in 
the Panama Canal enterprise to the United States. Her 
position was friendly and above suspicion. 

It would not do to say that this was "not business, it 
is sentiment." The French were both "business" and 
"sentimental/' They were lovable because they were 
sentimental. Lafayette was sentimental in our Revolu- 
tion; so were all his countrymen. There was no "busi- 
ness'' at all in what they then did for us; it was all "sen- 
timent." 

The most that could be justly urged against France's 
proposition was that she might be mistaken about the 

17 



258 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

Panama being the best route. But suppose, after we 
had built the Nicaragua Canal and France had completed 
the Panama, we should find that we had made a mistake 
and that France was right! The error would then be 
irremediable. 

France was our friend. She had always been. She 
had been as good a friend when we were in need of sol- 
diers and sailors as she had been in our most envied 
prosperity. It would not be fair to our friend, France, 
to decide against her proposition before we got through 
with our investigation of all the possible routes for a 
canal across the Isthmus. To decide in favor of any one 
route against the French before we had completely 
investigated all the routes, would be to affront a friendly 
people without any reason at all, and be doing a very 
foolish thing anyway. 

It was contended by some of the best engineers in the 
world that the only advantage the Nicaragua route had 
over the Panama route lay in the matter of expense; 
that is, that we could build a canal by Lake Nicaragua 
for less money than it would cost us to buy out the 
French claim and finish the Panama ditch. The conten- 
tion was not at all reasonable, because the French had 
not yet made to us their last offer. 

Any suggestion of haggling on our part with France 
would be painful to most Americans. They would 
resent it as ungracious and insist on having France 
treated as a welcome negotiator, at the very least. She 
was so anxious to have what she deemed the best route 
used that it was more than probable that if honest 
investigation should show that the Panama "route was as 
good as that of Nicaragua in all matters but that of 



PUBLIC SERVANT 259 

expense, she would offer to sell out to us at any loss that 
might induce us to take and complete her undertaking-. 

He was not arguing for the French route, nor for the 
Nicaragua route. He was simply tor a canal between 
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by the best route across 
the Isthmus. 

Which was the best route had not yet been ascertained. 
Until it was ascertained he objected to having the 
Republican party committed to any route. 

He wished and urged to have the party pledged irre- 
vocably to the work of constructing a canal across the 
Isthmus by the best route that could be found. 

Until it could be decided which was the best route, 
and until the route offered to us by our friends, the 
French, was decided not the best, he protested against 
having the Republican party committed to the injustice 
of barring the French proffer from the negotiations. 

He recommended that the plank on the canal question 
should simply pledge the party, in the event of success 
in the coming election, to build an Isthmian canal, leav- 
ing the question of route entirely open, to be settled as 
the facts to be yet developed warranted. 

The Committee on Resolutions requested Mr. Mad- 
den to prepare a plank on the canal question. While he 
was doing this, other members composed planks on the 
same subject. When they were finished and handed in, 
on the motion of Senators Foraker and Cushman Davis, 
the plank prepared by the Illinois man was unanimously 
adopted and it was ordered inserted in the platform as 
the official expression of the attitude of the Republican 
party on the question. The plank is as follows: 

"We favor the Construction, Ownership and Protec- 



260 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

tion of an Istnmian Canal by the Government of tne 
United States. New markets are necessary for the 
increasing surplus of our farm products. Every effort 
should be made to open and obtain new markets, espe- 
cially in the Orient, and the Administration is warmly to 
be commended for its successful effort to commit all 
trading s^nd colonizing nations to the policy of the Open 
Door in China/' 

When the text of the platform was given to the 
press, a rough storm was raised over the word "Isth- 
mian" in the Canal plank. The great majority of the 
newspapers had committed themselves to the Nica- 
raguan route so unreservedly as to seem astounded at the 
mention of the possibility of any other. It was not long 
before some papers attempted to "get away from their 
mistake" by raising the cries of "fraud" and "bribery." 

These cries soon became general and concerted, and 
at last were directed unmistakably at ex-Congressman 
Lemuel Quigg, of New York. He had acted as Secretary 
of the Committee on Resolutions, and it had been his 
business to take the resolutions as they were passed, 
arrange them in their proper order, and attend to the 
printing of them. Soon the story was whispered about 
that opponents of the Nicaragua line had paid Quigg a 
large sum of money for the insertion of the word "Isth- 
mian" instead of the word "Nicaraguan" in the Canal 
plank after the platform had been reported by the Com- 
mittee on Resolutions to the Convention of delegates as 
a whole and had been by the Convention read, approved 
and ordered published, and when correction was impos- 
sible. 

This detailed story was readily believed and was hav- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 261 

ing a bad effect. It was telegraphed all over the 
country. When it reached Kansas City, where the Pop- 
ulists were assembling to nominate Mr. Bryan as the 
Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it had such a 
virtuous effect on their political rectitude that they ran 
the party they had got control of straight into the grasp 
of the Eastern syndicate, k by fixing their Canal plank 
unalterably for the Nicaragua route. 

In Washington, New York and Philadelphia political 
excitement over the Quigg story was in no wise allayed 
by all the denials made by members of the Committee 
on Resolutions. The Opposition party papers realized 
that if the scandal was well founded it was a thing to be 
44 worked for all it was worth," and their correspondents 
covering the Convention were instructed to keep at the 
probe and exposure. W. E. Curtis at length agreed to 
accommodate a syndicate of these writers by using his 
personal acquaintance with various members of the com- 
mittee to ascertain the real truth. ''There is one man 
on the committee," said Curtis, "whose word, one way 
or the other, will settle the thing forever. He is never 
in any 'deal,' never in the dark, never in any kind of 
'mix-up,' and is always fixed to tell a newspaperman 
the exact truth. I'll go to him. " He went, and, put- 
ting the Committeeman on his honor and stating the 
case, said, "Is the story true?" 

"There is not a word of truth in it," was the reply. 
"1 myself wrote the Canal plank. I put the word 'Isth- 
mian' in it. The plank as published is exactly as I wrote 
it, word for word, comma for comma, period for period." 

"There is nothing in it, gentlemen," answered Curtis, 
to the expectant and excited group of reporters awaiting 



262 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

him. "M. B, Madden says he wrote the plank, 'Isth- 
mian' and all, and that the committee and the Convention 
adopted it exactly as it is published. That settles it. 
There is no more to say. " 

'Less enlightened journalists elsewhere, however, kept 
the scandal up. When the delegates had all gone home 
a prominent Republican newspaper in Chicago revived 
the story with large headlines in a first column article. 
In this Quigg was circumstantially accused of having 
accepted $5,000 in cash for erasing the word "Nicara- 
gua. " Mr. Madden was home at the time, and 
'phoned the editor the truth and some light on the whole 
subject. The reparation Mr. Quigg received was a sub- 
sequent editorial in which it was argued that "even if the 
gentleman did receive $5,000 for putting the word 'Isth- 
mian' in the Canal plank, he has performed a very meri- 
torious service for the country ; and for an exceedingly 
trivial sum has kept the Republican party out of a very 
deep and a very dangerous hole. " 

Statesmen are fond of pointing out the influence of 
single words in determining the popular vote in our 
Republic. The accidental, or the calculated, use of the 
words "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" by the Rev. 
Dr. Burchard, while describing the Democratic opposi- 
tion to Mr. Blaine, during an address of welcome to him 
at the Fifth AVenue Hotel in New York, defeated for 
the Presidency the greatest Protectionist this country 
ever had and elected the greatest Free Trader. The 
insertion of the word "Gold" in the financial plank of 
the St. Louis platform in 1896 probably drew more votes 
away from the Democratic party to the organization 
which by the use of that word dared show its real convic- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 263 

tions than all the other efforts in that campaign com- 
bined. It was not easy to obtain the substitution of the 
word "Isthmian" for that of "Xicaraguan" in the Canal 
plank of the Philadelphia platform, and it was difficult to 
get the word "Gold" adopted at St. Louis. The plat- 
form use of the former word has had a great effect on 
public *affairs; as had the platform use of the latter, 
although in a different way. 

It is an extraordinary fact that both the words 
"Gold" and "Isthmian" were got into the Republican 
platforms by Illinois men, and that in the case of each 
word the same man was conspicuous in the task of alter- 
ation. 

When consideration is given to the great change in 
public sentiment on the Inter-Oceanic Canal question 
during the few months elapsed since the Philadelphia 
Convention, the adoption of the word "Isthmian" there 
reveals political insight almost approaching prophecy. 
The United States, as matters now look, may take 
France's place on the Isthmus, and thus vastly augment 
the amity between the two Republics, instead of becom- 
ing a losing rival and sacrificing one of the two most 
valuable friendships this nation has ever had among the 
powers of the world. 

Many of the chief managers of the Republican party 
have said to the writer that they "never could be thank- 
ful enough for the salvation effected by that little word 
'Isthmian. ' " 

The Illinois delegate who secured this "salvation, " 
when asked how he enjoyed the reward of his virtue, mod- 
estly turned the subject aside by replying: "Illinois 
desired the word in the platform. I was the represents- 



264 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

tive of the state delegated to procure the adoption of the 
word. I simply did what I was entrusted to do. What 
is the representative of a state to do but try to carry out 
the known wishes of his state? He cannot properly do 
anything else." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



SAVT36 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FROM COMMITTING A BLUNDER- 
WITTY SPEECH. 



THE attendance at the Philadelphia Convention was 
greater than that at any of the previous assem- 
blages of the Republican party. When it became gener- 
ally known that the Committee on Resolutions had settled 
down to the work of framing a declaration of principles 
it was at once beset with delegations representing every 
conceivable sort of interest, pleading for hearings. Most 
of these bodies were sent by commercial organizations to 
secure declarations favoring modifications in the Spanish 
War taxes affecting their commodities. All of them were 
well equipped with arguments to show that if the taxes 
were not removed or reduced, business would be pros- 
trated and the responsible party swept from power. 

The richest and most powerful organization of this 
kind that was able to compel a hearing was the United 
States Brewers' Association. This represented practi- 
cally all the beer making establishments in the United 
States, employing several hundred thousand voters and 
possessing several hundred million dollars in capital; 
besides the allied interests, such as those of barley rais- 
ing, hop culture, corn and rice growing, barrel making, 
retail selling, etc. The Association had held a general 
congress in Philadelphia in the April preceding the Con- 
vention, had had several committees be'fore Congress, 

265 



266 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

and at the Treasury and Internal Revenue Departments, 
and had had its case powerfully presented in a full- 
page article in Postmaster-General Smith's paper, the 
Philadelphia Press, about the time the delegates began 
to arrive to attend the Convention. 

The brewers made a most powerful argument. The 
beer industry during the Civil War had submitted cheer- 
fully to the imposition of a tax of one dollar a barrel. 
When nearly all the other Civil War taxes were removed, 
the beer tax was left untouched and it still was collected. 
The brewers had not only always cheerfully paid it, but 
had so assisted the Government by various ingenious 
devices for collection as to practically make impossible 
any frauds on the beer revenue. When taxes were assessed 
for the expenses of the war against Spain, an additional 
dollar per barrel was laid on beer, while two-thirds of 
the articles that had yielded war revenue during the 
Rebellion were left untaxed. The profit to the manufac- 
turer on a barrel of beer was only eight) 7 cents. The 
new tax compelled the brewers to make beer for noth- 
ing, and besides pay the Government twenty cents a 
barrel for the privilege of doing business, unless they 
found a way to induce the retailers to be satisfied with 
less in each barrel, and the consumers with less in each 
glass. The brewers were patriotic and had consented to 
the tax to help the Government out in its difficulty with 
Spain. The Government had assured them that the 
additional tax was for war purposes only and would not 
be collected after the extra financial demands caused by 
the war should cease. The war against Spain had been 
ended now eighteen months, and the tax was still col- 
lected. It was unfair to the beer industry, which was 



PUBLIC SERVANT 267 

being crippled by the excessive burden. It had already 
paid $7 1,000,000 of the war expenditures and was entitled 
to relief. Notwithstanding the great prosperity attend- 
ing every other business in the country there was general 
impending bankruptcy in that of brewing beer because 
of the long continuance of the excessive war revenue 
tax, and during the preceding year the output had fallen 
off more than one million barrels. 

The argument was cogent and was well received, and 
the brewers received assurance that the Republican 
party would protect their interest by a fair reduction of 
taxation as soon as the expenses occasioned by the war 
should warrant it. 

Then a movement was started by some ill-advised 
persons to have the Brewers' Association attempt to 
compel the Resolutions Committee to insert in the plat- 
form a special plank in favor of cheaper beer. Strange 
as it may seem, this movement became absolutely power- 
ful and was advocated by some of the most prominent 
men in the country. The crisis in this crusade came one 
day when a celebrated advocate, arguing in favor of the 
party declaring officially for cheaper, beer, pushed his 
thunder into the region of threat. He said beer was the 
liquid bread of millions of Americans. Other millions of 
people in this country earned their living in raising or 
producing the materials that went into the composition of 
beer. There were other millions still that made their liv- 
ing by selling beer by the glass, to say nothing of the 
millions who drank it to quench thirst. The continu- 
ance of the tax was an oppression of all these people, 
and they would punish at the polls the party responsible 
for it. Beer drinking promoted temperance, as the 



268 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

people who consumed it let intoxicating drinks alone. 
The continuance of the extra tax was hurting the cause 
of temperance, as was shown by the fact that in the year 
just past, because of the tax, the people of the country 
had drunk one million barrels less than they had used 
during the year before. Gladstone had been thrown out 
of power in 1 885 because to get money to pay the expenses 
of the Egyptian War he had raised the tax on beer a few 
pence per barrel. The present government in Great 
Britain, with a far more expensive war on their hands 
than ours with Spain, did not dare to increase the beer 
tax more than a few pennies on the barrel. The present 
Administration had increased the tax on beer one dollar 
per barrel. That tax was retained eighteen months 
after the Spaniards had ceased to fight. It was making 
the liquid bread of the American people dearer; it was 
making the poor man's beverage more costly; it was 
hurting the cause of temperance. If the party in power 
did not in its platform declare for cheaper beer and the 
abolition of the extra dollar a barrel, the $650,000,000 
invested in the brewing trade in the United States, the 
900,000 men employed in the breweries, and the entire 
German vote in the forty-five states would be thrown 
against the Republican party in the coming election, and 
it would be cast out of power as the people's enemy. 

The delegate from Illinois could stand this no longer. 
He was entertained, he said, by the argument that the 
more beer people drank the more temperate they 
became, and he was grieved to learn that the 250,000 
soldiers who had gone to the war used when home four 
barrels of beer each every twelve months, their absence 
diminishing the total consumption one million barrels a 



PUBLIC SERVANT 269 

year. Nevertheless, the logic did not convince him that 
to remedy the situation the Republican party should take 
the proposed beer stand on its platform. The party 
would reduce all the war taxes, including that on beer, 
as soon as it could, and as much as it could. 

He had no misgivings about the German vote; the 
party would no doubt be able to give this vote sufficient 
reasons for continued adherence. There was one 
important question he would like to ask the orator: was 
he in favor of a secret alliance between the United 
States and England? 

Having Irish blood in his veins, the speaker replied, 
hotly: "No, sir; anything else but that." 

"Would any of the gentlemen in your party be in 
favor of such an alliance?" 

"No; they are all Germans." 

"Would you or they favor committing the Republican 
party in the coming campaign to a secret alliance with 
England?" 

"No; such a thing would drive the Republican party 
out of existence." 

"How would it do that?" 

"Why, it would stir every Irishman and every Ger- 
man in the United States to come out and vote against 
the party on next election day." 

"Why do you include the Germans?" 

"Because to a man they are opposed to any secret 
alliance between this country and England. On that 
question they are as bitter as the Irish against Eng- 
land." 

"Well, then, that being so, why are you here urging 
this committee to affirm in its platform that the Repub- 



270 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

lican party is committed to a secret alliance between the 
White House and the Palace of St. James?" 

44 Great heavens! We're not here for that — we are 
trying to get the party to officially declare for cheap 
beer, for an abolition of the extra dollar a barrel tax, 
for ' ' 

44 Just so; you are trying to get this committee to 
affirm before the world that there is a sort of secret alli- 
ance between the American Government, as it is carried 
on by the Republican party, and England. You are 
aware that our political enemies are cultivating a suspi- 
cion that such an alliance exists. You know that this 
suspicion, which has no just foundation, is injurious to 
the Republican party. And yet you come here and ask 
us to increase the injury by making an official declaration 
which will be everywhere construed as an affirmation 
that the suspicion is well founded. 

44 The English, according to your own argument, are 
now paying the greater part of the Spanish War taxes. 
You ask the Republican party to commit itself to the 
abolition of those taxes the English are paying so that 
the world may believe there is an alliance which compels 
us to give the Britons an advantage over other tax-payers 
in American trade in return for their neutrality during 
the war. You know that to select the beer tax for spe- 
cial reduction would be to reduce the revenue English- 
men are now paying toward the support of this Govern 
ment, for nearly all the breweries are at present con- 
trolled by syndicates owned by Englishmen. I am 
amazed." 

The orator had been unable during this series of 
retorts to understand the gleam in Madden*s eyes, but 



PUBLIC SERVANT 271 

the end of the speech struck him like a thunderbolt. He 
had been swelling up with speechless indignation, but now 
he suddenly collapsed, taking relief in the one word, 
"Gawd!" and vanished, never to return. That ended 
the argument for beer. 

It is fairly claimed by Mr. Madden's intimates that 
he is a master artist in the use of short speech. Whether 
he can be cleverer in lucid brevity than he is in cogent 
dalliance with persons slow to perceive may be justly 
questioned. Whatever surpassed the above specimen of 
"long lining?" 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

PLANS THE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN FOR 190O— NEW SILVER AND 
EXPANSION ARGUMENT. 



WHEN the Illinois delegates to the Philadelphia Con- 
vention reached home they were received with 
enthusiasm and complimented upon the manner in which 
they had kept the state to the fore in the national pro- 
gramme. Mr. Madden's work in the Committee on Res- 
olutions, especially that in which he had secured recog- 
nition of labor, neutrality as to the canal route, and the 
declaration favoring the establishment of small national 
banks to afford increased circulation of money in the 
agricultural regions of the West, was applauded as the 
chief accomplishment in the platform. He was at once 
singled out to indicate the line of campaign management 
best to pursue. 

He promptly advocated the discussion of three issues: 
Expansion, Sound Money and Protective Tariff. It was 
suggested that it might be difficult to urge anything new 
on either the money or tariff questions. On the con- 
trary, he answered, both issues had entirely new features 
and were more important than ever. The tremendous 
revival of prosperity which had followed McKinley's 
election, owing to the restoration of confidence that 
American money would be gold and that American 
investments in all lines of business would be amply pro- 
tected from unfair foreign competition, had established 

272 



PUBLIC SERVANT 273 

beyond further dispute that Protection as a national pol- 
icy was the best. In less than four years it had not only 
set every idle man in the country to work at high wages 
and enabled them to furnish a market and pay higher 
prices for the farm products of the West, but had placed 
the United States at the very head of the list of exporting 
nations, turning the balance of trade in our favor, and 
making of us a lending instead of a borrowing people. 
We had now, however, to meet a new difficulty, and one 
more serious than any we had yet encountered. That 
was the coming Chinese competition. China was prepar- 
ing to modernize and go into trade as a competitor 
against Christendom for the manufacturing trade of the 
world. The competition of Europe, which Protection had 
enabled us to meet and overcome, was insignificant when 
compared to the possibilities of the" threatened rivalry 
of China. The conditions in the Celestial Empire were 
ideal for the change : inexhaustible quantities of raw 
material, a homogeneous population of skilled laborers 
of great intelligence, industry and frugality, and a gen- 
eral conviction that it would pay them, numbering nearly 
half the human race, to quit farming an over-cultivated 
land and buy their food with money obtained by manufac- 
turing. Until we knew just what we were to encounter 
from Oriental competition, it would be wise to cherish 
our Protective policy and to yield nothing of it except on 
the lines of reciprocity, where that might help the exten- 
sion of our trade in Europe. 

Bryan's nomination was certain. That would compel 
another discussion of the money question. In this the 
Republicans would have all the advantage. Bryan could 
offer nothing new, and most of what he had already 

18 



274 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

said was contradicted by the events of the past f our years. 
Prices of agricultural products had risen without the aid 
of free coinage of silver, which he had claimed was 
necessary to any enhancement of values; idleness had 
disappeared, in the face of his contention that it would 
increase unless free coinage was restored ; and the cir- 
culation of money had been vastly enlarged while the 
price of it^had fallen, contrary to the Populist's argument 
that interest would rise to the enslaving point and circu- 
lation decrease to that of bankruptcy if the Gold Standard 
was adopted. 

While Bryan would be reduced to dealing in discred- 
ited "chestnuts," as his own tired followers were call- 
ing his platitudes, the management of the Republican 
party had developed a situation that made probable a 
real solution of the silver problem. It was extraordinary, 
too, that whilst the party in power had committed itself 
to conditions which made the solution possible, Bryan 
had pledged himself to a policy exactly calculated to 
deprive silver of the best chance it had of regaining full 
rehabilitation in value. The modernizing of China 
depended upon the maintenance of the integrity of the 
empire. Our acquisition of the Philippines had made 
of us an Oriental power. We were now a neighbor of 
China, owning "adjoining lots." Our main interest in 
the country was that of trade, that of the open door. 
No power as far away as Europe would think of closing 
any Celestial door to us so long as we remained in the 
Philippines. Our stay there meant the preservation of 
the integrity of China, and, therefore, its modernization. 
The Republican party had resolved to remain. 

The resolution had been taken for purely patriotic 



PUBLIC SERVANT 275 

reasons and was subject to overthrow by a popular vote. 
If the American people had been warned by any reput- 
able statesman that war with Spain would result in 
occupation of the Philippines, that undesired result would 
unquestionably have prevented declaration of war. The 
war was waged for high-minded and entirely disinter- 
ested purposes, in none of which did the Oriental ques- 
tion in any shape even suggest itself. When the fortune 
of war compelled the Union to go to Manila, it trans- 
pired there, though unthought of before, that to leave 
might be disastrous. The flag was carried there because 
it had to go. When there it became necessary to raise 
it, and then no good reason could be found by those who 
put it up for taking it down. 

When China modernized, Mr. Madden went on, she 
would require a vast amount of money, more than all the 
rest of the world together. Her people practically dealt 
in cash with one another. They had reduced the art of 
living on the least possible to such a low standard that 
for the ordinary purchases of everyday life they used 
coins of so small a denomination that an American silver 
dollar would in some parts of the country bring 2,500 of 
them. The number of these little coins given in the 
exchange represented exactly the number of parts into 
which the people could clip the metallic dollar acceptable 
as standard money in exchange. Gold was not suffi- 
ciently divisible for general use as standard money in a 
country like that. Silver was. Hence, silver was the 
standard money now in use by the Chinese and probably 
always would be. Wages would no doubt rise in that 
country after its modernization, but it was hardly pos- 
sible they ever would get sufficiently high to permit the 



276 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

general use of gold as standard money. Silver would, 
therefore, remain the common standard coin of the 
Chinese. When their nation should be modernized thor- 
oughly the increased demand for standard money in that 
country would be so enormous that it would trouble the 
world to yield enough precious metal to meet it, and that 
natural demand would open every silver mine capable of 
yielding an ounce and raise the value of silver perhaps 
even above the price of '73. 

The retention of the Philippines, then, would solve 
the Silver question, solve it forever, and solve it for the 
American producer in a more satisfactory way than any 
before proposed. But Bryan, who neither understood 
the Silver question nor the question of locating the Amer- 
ican flag, was opposed to the retention of the Philippines. 
He was committed to their abandonment in case he got 
to the White House as Presidential occupant. The Sil- 
ver men of the country, Mr. Madden thought, would see 
to it that the greatest living enemy of American silver 
would retain his residence in Nebraska, where he would 
be unable to interfere with the integrity of China and 
our market there for the white metal. 

Expansion, Mr. Madden contended, would be the 
most interesting theme in the campaign. It was a Dem- 
ocratic policy and would be inspiring to those Democrats 
who had helped the Republicans elect McKinley to his 
first term. It would induce them to support him again. 
Their conduct in 1896 had been especially high-minded 
and patriotic. Their party was older than the Republi- 
can, had more traditions, had put more laws on the 
statute books, had produced a larger number of public 
men. It had conducted the affairs of the Republic for a 



PUBLIC SERVANT 277 

longer time and had inspired a noble loyalty exceedingly 
difficult to break away from. Yet these men, from pure 
principle and love of the country's honor and good name, 
had torn themselves away from old political affiliations 
and given the Republican candidate a sufficient suffrage 
to defeat their own nominee. This magnificent mani- 
festation of patriotism had startled the world by exhibit- 
ing the enduring character of American institutions and 
had inspired McKinley's administration with breadth 
and statesmanship. These loyal Democrats were proud 
of their work in 1896 and anxious to repeat it, for they 
had the satisfactory reward of seeing a Republican 
administration parrying out Democratic policies for the 
country's development. Thousands of Democrats who 
had abandoned their party in 1896 but had refrained from 
voting, would now support MeKinley because he "was a 
better Democrat than Bryan." 

The argument for Expansion, as presented by the 
Republicans, Mr. Madden pointed out, had so many 
extraordinary phases of patriotic as well as material 
interest for the country as a whole, and for particular 
localities, especially for Illinois and Chicago, that Bryan's 
opposition to it looked like an act of Providence devised 
to arouse the American people to array themselves 
solidly before the world on a question of international 
justice, for future effect on mankind. This attitude 
would produce the largest majority in favor of Expansion 
ever given in the country for any national policy. 

A consideration of some of the conditions that com- 
pelled the Americans to remain in the Philippines after 
they went there on a simple naval expedition would make 
this manifest. Dewey had been ordered to overtake and 



278 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

destroy the Spanish fleet in the Pacific. Ascertaining 
that it was at Manila he went there to carry out the 
order. After he had "overtaken and destroyed," the 
Spaniards practically surrendered to him the Archipelago. 
Then some foreign fleets appeared. It was at first sus- 
pected they had followed our ships for unfriendly pur- 
poses. When this suspicion was found unjust, their 
presence still remained unexplained until our Government 
learned what had been going on in China. The Govern- 
ment of that country some time before had discovered, 
in an effort to take a census of its population, that it had 
reached a point in numbers where it exceeded the ability 
of the land longer to feed it. Then began the effort to 
find a solution of the awful national trouble. The one 
Li Hung Chang had determined to try was to modernize 
the country, put it to work utilizing its vast natural min- 
eral resources in manufacture, and buy its food instead 
of longer attempting to obtain it from the exhausted 
ground. What made the change more imperative was 
the additional discovery that the rice of the country, the 
main food of the immense population, had begun to 
rapidly deteriorate in nutriment as a result of the long 
continued in-breeding of centuries. The Chinese states- 
men carrying on the paternal government of the coun- 
try, after exhaustive study, had concluded to effect the 
substitution of flour, and had surveyed the wheat lands 
of the whole world, seeking a source of supply. They 
had concluded that the lands of the United States, if all 
brought into cultivation, would about produce sufficient 
wheat for China's impending wants. These hard-headed 
pagans never thought of calculating upon any other plan 
of bringing about the substitution of flour for rice among 



PUBLIC SERVANT 279 

their famishing countrymen than the natural one of the 
law of supply and demand. They knew that once 
China's policy was decided upon and made known to 
the world, lands capable of producing wheat would be 
brought into cultivation just as rapidly as the demand 
for their product called for it. The rice would not at 
once disappear. If it should the Chinese race would dis- 
appear from the earth, as the world could not produce 
in a season the additional 2,800,000,000 bushels of wheat 
it would take to keep the people of China alive. How- 
ever rapidly the rice might fail, so long as it did not fail 
altogether in a few seasons, flour would be produced 
sufficiently to take its place, even if that result had to be 
obtained by public opinion forcing the American Govern- 
ment to use its rich treasury to quickly water the rich 
volcanic soil in the West. 

China was unobtrusive and did not take the world 
much into confidence. But many other nations main- 
tained agents in friendly territory, and their business was 
to keep their home governments apprised of what was 
going on. By such means various powers had learned 
of the arranging revolution in China, a thing that was 
bound to upset the whole world, dislodge all established 
calculations and make of that territory that furnished the 
Chinese their new food the richest land Christendom had 
ever imagined. Then there was a scurrying to get 
shares in the new deal. As if by concert certain powers 
appeared on Chinese territory and there were rumors of 
a division, of the taking of ports for the control of trade, 
of spheres of influence, and of many other similar things. 

The United States was not in the thing at all, didn't 
seem even to know what was going on or what the fuss in 



280 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

China was about. When it was agreed what part of 
Kwang-Su's empire each Christian country was to take, 
the trespassers thought it necessary to secure bases of 
operation near by. The Chinese might resist, other 
nations might interfere with the plan of dismemberment 
and occupation. Japan had secured Formosa and Eng- 
land had Hong-Kong. No available base was left but the 
Philippine Archipelago. That belonged to Spain. 
Rumors began to obtain- currency that negotiations had 
been opened with Spain for the purchase of the Philip- 
pines by one or more of the powers mixed up in the con- 
templated spoliation of China. 

Just at this critical time Dewey arrived upon the 
scene. When he found that the fleets hovering about 
him meant no harm to him, a search was made for the 
reason of their presence. It gradually leaked out that the 
powers thought America didn't want the islands. Nor did 
it. The powers also believed Dewey would abandon them 
and then they would be left to appropriation, Spain having 
deserted them. It was not strange that the Administra- 
tion at Washington took it into its head to inquire into 
the whole matter to find out just why these powers were 
so anxious to obtain islands that had no apparent value 
to us. Such an inquiry did not have to be pushed far 
before it brought its followers right into the heart of the 
whole Chinese question, the largest one in the ,world. 
Now then, when the inquirers saw that if China were 
let alone and permitted to work out her own destiny, the 
result would be a greater trade upon the Pacific than the 
Atlantic ever saw; large cities on our western coast, 
centers for a denser population there than now inhabited 
the eastern shore; every acre of tillable land in the vast 



PUBLIC SERVANT 281 

region between the Mississippi and Puget Sound farmed 
to raise food for China: millions of dollars invested in 
transcontinental railroads for every thousand then — what 
would they suggest, what would they advise? Espe- 
cially, when it was plain that if China were torn apart, our 
West would remain in slow development? To let the 
Philippines go meant the latter. To hold them meant 
the former. It seemed to be a case of special interfer- 
ence by Providence. His yellow children in China were 
hungry and had obeyed the Divine law of increase until 
they now had not enough land to yield them food. His 
white children in America had land to spare for that. The 
President was a Christian and naturally inclined to say: 
Providence desired the Americans to feed the Chinese. 
Therefore He had prevented the would-be-dismemberers 
of that empire from obtaining the base needed to carry 
out their design and had led us into the possession of it. 
With that feeling in his heart, what was the President's 
duty? Well, he ordered the American flag raised over 
the Philippines and commanded that it be kept there 
until his countrymen should pass upon the whole ques- 
tion of retention or rejection by popular vote. The flag 
was still up and so would remain if the majority favored 
having the United States feed China and the West hav- 
ing its opportunity for symmetrical development with 
the rest of the land. It would come down, the powers 
have the islands donated to them as a base for China's 
dismemberment, and America remain half desert if 
Bryan won. Mr. Madden had no doubt about what the 
West would do on such a proposition, nor any misgiving 
at all about the attitude Illinois would take. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



MAKES THE BEST PUBLIC STATEMENT ON TRUSTS — PROPOSES THE 
BEST SOLUTION. 



IV 1 public question has arisen in American affairs dur- 
I i ing the past ten years that has aroused so much 
discussion as that of Trusts. It has been a porcupiny 
subject to most of our public men, the majority of whom 
lead professional lives and possess as a rule theoretical 
knowledge only of trade questions. If our legislatures 
had been composed more largely of experienced business 
men the trust question would long ago have received 
courageous and intelligent treatment, and perhaps now 
be settled satisfactorily, at least so far as such a question 
can be settled by law. 

During the Presidential campaign of 1900 the people 
in many states, and those of Illinois especially, irrespec- 
tive of party, gave many evidences of a wish to have the 
question of trusts discussed on the stump. With one 
exception, no public speaker on either side undertook 
to make the desired exposition. Mr. Bethea, the United 
States District Attorney in Illinois, who had given the 
subject much study, urged every prominent orator who 
filled an engagement in his territory during that cam- 
paign to devote some time in his speech to the trust 
problem. Not one of them complied until Mr. Madden 
was advertised to make an address. He was a large 
employer of labor and the President and Manager of one 

282 



PUBLIC SERVANT 283 

of the greatest business combinations in the state, an 
enterprise which at that time was operating no less than 
twelve consolidated companies. It was thought that he 
knew all about trusts and could thoroughly explain their 
composition and methods, as well as indicate their dan- 
gerous or beneficial tendencies. He did not hesitate at 
all in accepting Mr. Bethea's invitation and agreed to 
devote his whole speech to the subject. This agreement 
was extensively advertised and brought in a large audi- 
ence of interested and critical people. Mr. Madden kept 
his word, stated the whole question clearly and com-- 
pletely, and gave, what had not yet been done and what 
has not been done by any other public man, a rational, 
fair and effective solution of the whole trust trouble. 

In the beginning, Mr. Madden pointed out the con- 
stitutional limits of legal interference with the free em- 
ployment of capital. If a man, or a number of men, put 
any amount of money into a private business requiring 
and getting no public favors, they could not be restrained 
from letting their profits be added to their capital, nor 
from increasing it personally in any other honest way, no 
matter how large it became. It was only where capital 
operated in a corporate way, under some charter, or 
franchise, or public permission, that the law could be 
invoked to interfere. Then the interference would have 
to be confined to preventing the use of the capital for any 
other purpose than that plainly or impliedly expressed 
in the grant of incorporation. In all such cases the 
remedy was either by revocation of the act permitting 
the incorporation or by other corrective local legislation 
or litigation. No political remedy could be applied. 
Where the legal redress, which usually was ample, was 



284 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

not correctively used, the fault lay in either the apathy, 
the ignorance or the infidelity of the legislative or law 
officers of the injured locality. The people living there 
could by suffrage eject them from office and substitute 
other officials to properly restrain or destroy the offend- 
ing corporations. 

The speaker was of the opinion, however, that it was 
not these l< reachable" corporations the people were 
alarmed about, but that the public concern was princi- 
pally, if not altogether, regarding the tendency toward 
those vast combinations of capital which operated all 
over the country with a view toward monopolizing the 
handling of things of universal use and the control of the 
labor necessary to both produce them and distribute them 
after they were made. It was feared corporate control 
of production and distribution might enslave labor as 
well as rob the public of its independence. To that 
phase of the problem he would devote his remarks and 
apply the remedy he was ready to propose. 

It had not become a purely party problem because no 
alignment was possible on it that would include all the 
Democrats on one side and all the Republicans on the 
other by either personal or political bias or interest. 
The trust stocks were held indiscriminately by members 
of both parties, and had been, and were still, purchased 
solely as business and financial investments for the pur- 
pose of making money. They afforded about the most 
inviting field for the risk of large capital in this country, 
and the prospects were that they would continue to be so 
attractive for the many years the United States had 
before them the assured development of their enormous 
natural advantages. These were yet in the initial stages 



PUBLIC SERVANT 285 

of utilization and sufficient altogether to put the country 
in mastery of the trade of the present civilized world and 
maintain it in that supremacy for a long period, if not 
for all time. As the world stood, the territory of the 
American Union was the only large region that could 
supply its own people with all necessary food and man- 
ufactures and have surpluses of both to sell. All other 
countries had to buy either food or manufactures; this 
alone needed not to buy either, and could sell both. 
After supplying its own needs, it could furnish all of 
Europe with manufactured goods; after feeding its own 
people, it could assure the people of Europe all the food 
they wanted, for less than they could raise it themselves. 
In one year after the political economists had concluded 
that the world had reached the limit of wheat produc- 
tion, the United States had increased their yield nearly 
300,000,000 bushels; and did so without bringing into cul- 
tivation more than a mere fraction of their irrigable 
lands. 

The immense increase of American trusts recently 
noticed with alarm had followed and been stimulated by 
the growth of the nation's foreign trade and had been 
the principal instrumentality in its development, either 
in the work of transporting agricultural products by land 
and water or the handling of our iron and steel output. 
It would, therefore, be found impossible to interfere, 
wisely or unwisely, in the growth or management of 
trusts without affecting favorably or injuriously the 
growth and development of our foreign trade. On the 
other hand, however, because of this very general oper- 
ation of trust capital and of the national character of its 
influence for good or evil, the question of regulation 



286 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

became easier, as it placed that within Federal supervision 
and subject to popular vote. So long as a trust operated 
within a single state, Washington could not very well 
interfere; but when its work became general in effect 
upon national industry or interest, the voters could reach 
it and the Government would be forced to regulate its 
management. The tendency was towards general oper- 
ation, and Federal regulation was becoming imminent. 
This could not very well be partisan, because trust evils 
were not of party production. The factors that would 
control the settlement were two — the interest of labor 
and the welfare of the consumer. 

The workingmen of the country were especially intel- 
ligent on all public matters affecting their own welfare. 
What they most desired was steady employment at fair 
wages. They knew that reduction in the mechanical 
cost of production increased employment by enlarging 
demand for the things made, and perceived plainly that 
aggregations of capital effected this more than any other 
instrumentality. The smaller employer often closed his 
factory when improved machinery was beyond his means. 
That brought idleness to his men. The richer employer, 
who could afford to substitute the improved methods, 
kept on and continued paying wages. The larger the 
capital the employer had the less danger there was of 
stoppage of work, and the better the prospect of increased 
wages through augmented consumption. Even where the 
question was not one of employing better methods, large 
capital was more likely to keep a mill running than small 
capital would be, because less disposed to hazard the loss 
in the plant entailed by disuse. A combination, no mat- 
ter under what name, operating many mills in different 



PUBLIC SERVANT • 287 

localities, was more apt to keep them all running all the 
time than individual ownership would be, and less prone 
to lessen employment in dull times. In fact, the combi- 
nation, through its ability to reduce managerial ex- 
penses, would not require as great profits in the aggre- 
gate to meet dividends as would several different compa- 
nies doing the same amount of work; and could run with 
profit even in conditions that would be losing to the com- 
panies. Several organizations owning separately several 
lines of railway that, connected, would form a continuous 
road, could not give as good through service for the same 
price as could one corporation operating the same routes 
as one, nor could they afford employment for as many 
hands or keep the same number as steadily engaged, 
because less able to reduce rates and so attract business. 
The laboring men of the country understood all this 
better than the general public. 

In manufacturing, the ability of the country was now 
two-fifths greater than its consumption. With all the 
factories running, the United States would now produce 
exactly forty per cent, more than it could consume at 
home. If American manufacturing were limited to the 
home market, therefore, it would have to curtail employ- 
ment forty per cent; throw 400 men out of work of every 
1,000 now employed. The only present possible method 
of keeping all the men at work was to find foreign 
markets for two-fifths of our manufactures. The labor- 
ing men of the country had a vital interest in the reten- 
tion and expansion of our foreign trade. They knew that 
it could be both held and increased by great aggrega- 
tions of capital only. To sell in the Old World was an 
entirely different thing from selling at home. There 



288 • MARTIN B. MADDEN 

payments were much slower, and capital must be able to 
wait for its pay. Vast amounts of goods must be kept 
always in great storehouses awaiting orders and armies of 
agents maintained to seek outlets for the storage. Small 
companies could not do this, nor could any combination 
of small concerns do it as well as the vast aggregations of 
capital now engaged in it. They alone could afford the 
two enormous risks involved — that of money tied up in 
goods not moving, and of selling either without profit or 
at a loss. It was no doubt true that American goods 
were often sold abroad for less than at home. The man- 
ufacturers had no leaning towards trade of that kind, but 
were often compelled to get rid of surplus stock at a loss 
in that way. In some cases they could afford to sell their 
surpluses abroad without profit, being ahead on the home 
trade; in others it might be wise for them to sell at a 
loss, even to great diminution of their domestic divi- 
dends. So long as they made surpluses and found 
markets .for them, they kept their factories open and 
their men employed. This was the main fact to the 
American workingman. It would be difficult to induce 
him to antagonize the formation of the gigantic combina- 
tions of capital that alone made the sales abroad possible. 
Calling them trusts, the laboring man would say, did 
not make the result to him any less beneficial. 

The consumer, though, might naturally take a differ- 
ent view of the matter. What he wanted was cheap 
goods. He would resent paying more than the for- 
eigner, no matter what argument should be brought 
forward. It would be hard to convince him that a 
trust was philanthropic and took the risk of finding for- 
eign markets merely for the purpose of continuing its men 



PUBLIC SERVANT 289 

in employment. He would not even believe in the rea- 
soning that trusts would rather meet the loss risked in 
foreign markets than that involved in stopping work, 
with its consequent deterioration in plant, difficulty in 
resuming, and impossibility of at once taking good orders 
that might suddenly develop. He would, of course, be 
glad to have anything done that would assure constant 
work and good wages to domestic workingmen, as the 
whole body of them spent most of what they earned 
immediately after receiving it, and that put money into 
circulation and made times good. Nevertheless, the 
consumer would object to having that done at his 
expense, as it would seem to be so long as he could not 
understand entirely why he paid more for what he had to 
buy than foreigners three thousand miles away did for 
the same things turned out of the same shops. He would 
see in the whole business a sort of natural partnership 
between labor and capital, the one interested in the 
other, and both interested in high prices at home. 

What would most affect his opposition to trusts would 
be the vast amount of visible water in their stocks. 
Upon this interest would have to be obtained by the 
managers. They would get it by keeping up prices. 
Before the formation of trusts he could see that prices 
were, as a rule, rather fairly based on the cost of pro- 
duction. He then had no sound reason against paying 
them. But when the cost of production had palpably 
been reduced by consolidation of plants, elimination of 
management expenses, and discounts on immense pur- 
chases of raw material, he expected the whole benefit 
himself. Instead of getting it he saw it retained in 
dividends. The percentage of earnings on the shares 

19 



290 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

was not increased, but their number was. The plants 
absorbed had not grown in value with the increase in 
shares. The additional stocks represented no more 
worth in the properties absorbed, but were devised to 
keep him from receiving any part of the lessened cost in 
production. They were water. If watering stock were 
not a part of the production of trusts, the consumer 
would be benefited by their formation as well as the 
capitalists and laborers. 

It would be of no use to argue with the consumer that 
when a price had been established and accepted by the 
people, and was ungrudgingly paid, simply because the 
thing carrying it was worth it, and a genius came along 
and devised a method of producing that thing in a 
cheaper way, the genius was entitled to the sum of his 
saving, as a reward for that exercise of his talent. If you 
should instance the highest form of this kind of work — 
patents — the consumer would respond that the public 
had a good deal to do with furnishing genius the field 
necessary for the operation of its talent. He would tell 
you that inventors were limited to a seventeen years' 
monopoly, after which the public acquired the whole 
value of the invention, and that even during the term of 
the monopoly the public had the right, and always used 
it, of breaking down the inventor's monopoly if he didn't 
reduce prices, by stimulating other inventors to do it. 

As his strongest argument against the formation of 
trusts, the consumer would then tell you that they really 
never would be formed but for the opportunity they 
afforded of selling water at high prices. That was the 
one inducement that drew men of commercial talent into 
the work of organizing them. The promoters of trusts 



PUBLIC SERVANT 291 

ascertained how much each of the companies to be 
absorbed was worth at the market; they added all these 
sums and then arranged for that total of money with 
which to buy. They then accurately calculated the sav- 
ing that could be made upon the whole output of these 
establishments when conducted under one management. 
They capitalized the amount of the ascertained saving 
and added this to the sum needed to purchase, and to 
that aggregate usually put something on account of 
monopoly. They stocked a corporation for the whole 
amount, bought the companies out at the arranged prices, 
sold them to the corporation for the sum of its capital, 
taking their pay in either cash or new shares. They 
made the difference between what they bought at and 
what they sold at without putting anything into the new 
company but manipulation and water. These promoters 
seldom had any intention of identifying themselves with 
the conduct of the business in its new form. As a rule, 
their sole aim was to make a market for watered stock 
and then part with it. The opportunities for such spec- 
ulations were numerous in a rapidly growing country like 
this, and were the principal, if not the only, cause of the 
formation of trusts. 

You would not be able to make any effective reply to 
the consumer's argument. 

The question was now reduced to this: what was the 
best way to prevent the known evils of the trust and at 
the same time conserve its advantages, without discour- 
aging the consolidation of capital? 

If the main inducement to unnecessary promotion 
were eliminated it would not discourage beneficial combi- 
nation of capital; in fact, it might encourage it byremov- 



292 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

ing' the necessity of paying dividends on anything but 
actual investment. Capital would then move naturally 
into advantageous consolidations. The watering of 
trust stocks made impossible, prices would fall as they 
should under trust consolidation and management. The 
consumer would be satisfied with his share of the result, 
while capital and labor would be as well off in their 
prospects as before. 

The best thing to do, Mr. Maclden concluded, was to 
apply the national bank method of supervision to all 
trusts or other corporations formed to make or handle 
articles of general necessity or interest, and have the 
states adopt a similar method of overseeing those whose 
business was local. 

He then described the Federal supervision of the banks : 
how it refused to permit organization until the Govern- 
ment saw, counted and was satisfied with the capital put 
up ; how it prevented the issuing of more shares than were 
paid for in actual value; how it exercised constant watch 
over the way the banks did business; how it protected the 
stockholders, the customers, the depositors and the public 
by frequent inspection of the books and compulsory 
publicity of the actual condition of the business, ascer- 
tained by responsible and reliable sworn examination; 
how the whole Government action prevented speculative 
promotion and all watering processes, without in any 
wise interfering with perfect liberty of all honorable 
action in the way of transacting sound business. It was 
made plain that while the Government control of the 
formation of national banks, and its frequent examina- 
tion of their books, and its periodical enforcement of 
publication of their actual condition, prevented speculat- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 293 

ive promotion of banks, watering their stocks, and all 
collusive attempts at controlling either the price of 
money or its free use, the supervision did not restrict the 
growth of any proper banking enterprise, but on the 
contrary encouraged it, while reducing cost to the users 
of money. 

Mr. Bethea, and all the auditors agreed with him, 
declared that Mr. Madden's proposed application of the 
Federal banking methods to the business of corporations 
handling things of general necessity and use, would not 
only solve the trust problem, but would establish the 
same concord between the large manufacturers and the 
consumers as now existed between the users of money and 
the banks that furnished it. In addition, it would vastly 
increase American production in the same way the banks 
had assisted in the immense increase, and circulation of 
monev. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



PROPOSES AN EFFECTIVE METHOD OF ACCOMPLISHING ANNEXA- 
TION OF CANADA. 



SPEAKING on the Canadian question during- the cam- 
paign of 1900, Mr. Madden used the following inter- 
esting argument: 

4 'Every time I look across the St. Lawrence River 
upon Canada, I am sorry to see that country remaining 
foreign soil. It should be a part of this Union. The 
manifest destiny of all North America is to be in the 
United States. Canada should be in now, and would be 
but for the tariff policy of the Democratic party, which 
favors low duties or none at all. Give the Dominion 
free trade with our country and she will never annex so 
long as she has it. Give her low duties and she will 
remain foreign. Put a high tariff against her and she 
will have to join us for self-protection. Canada cannot 
live alone without easy access to our market. The easiest 
entry would be that of free trade. With it she would be 
foolish to join us and would remain aloof. With a low 
tariff against her, she could get in all she wanted to for 
the purposes of trade, and would not come to stay and 
be governed. But if the customs were made high along 
our northern border, Canada would plead for the aboli- 
tion of the boundary. 

"What we Americans pay for the freedom of the 
market in these states and territories is taxes, military 

294 



PUBLIC SERVANT 295 

service and the cost of defending the country when it is 
assailed. When the tariff is low Canada gets this market 
for less than American citizens pay for it, because the 
duties she pays are not as much as the taxes we pay, and 
then we contribute besides military service, which she 
escapes, as well as she does the other responsibilities that 
fall on us. With free trade Canada would have our mar- 
ket for nothing and would take out of the country a great 
deal of money that .left here would make it easier for us 
to meet the price we always have to pay for that same 
market. But make the tariff high, so high that it would 
be cheaper for Canada to come in and pay the price we 
do than pay the tariff for the market, and she would 
come in in a hurry, for then it would be foolish to stay 
out. 

"The Democratic policy of low tariff is unpatriotic, 
because it gives the foreigner the American market for 
less than the American citizen has to pay for it. The 
Republican policy of Protection, on the other hand, is 
patriotic, because its aim is to compel the foreigner to 
contribute towards the support of our Government a sum 
as nearly as possible equivalent to that the citizen pays 
for the use of this market. 

"So long as there is any probability that the Demo- 
cratic party, especially as led by Bryan, who is a Free 
Trader, may possess the management of American 
affairs, just that long will Canada hold out. If there 
could be established a certainty that the Republican 
party would remain in Washington for an indefinitely 
long time, an annexation movement would start among 
the Canadians right away. 

"The Democratic leaning towards free trade, that 



296 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

unpatriotic policy which pays Canada to remain British 
territory, incommodes this nation in many ways. For 
instance: it retards the construction of an inter-oceanic 
canal by depriving* England of an incentive towards 
helping us in the project instead of placing obstacles in 
our way. The railway across Canada along our northern 
boundary is a subsidized road. It is an arm of the Brit- 
ish military service. When first constructed its chief 
value to Great Britain lay in the fact that it would enable 
her to move an army to a part of Asia with greater 
speed and at less expense than it could be done by any 
other route. Why did Britain desire to be thus equipped? 
To get at Russia to circumvent the Bear in his plans in 
the Orient. Now, Russia is our friend, and once did us 
the great service of preventing the dismemberment of 
this Republic. She placed her fleet where it could do us 
the most good at that critical juncture in our affairs. 
The Bear did us another good turn. When we were 
endeavoring to preserve the entire Pacific coast as Amer- 
ican territory, in the days of the 4 54-49, or fight' excite- 
ment, he growled for us. He again helped us, and our 
Monroe Doctrine ambition, by ceding Alaska for a bag- 
atelle, as a sort of notice to the world that the Czar, who 
was a nearer neighbor than any other European power, 
thought America ought to be for the Americans. The 
Czar must have often puzzled himself with the query : 
'Why do my friends, the Yankees, permit my enemy to 
come at me across American territory which they can 
annex for nothing any time they choose by simply rais- 
ing their tariff?' He must have thought, our Protector, 
the Czar must, that our tariff policy was specially 
arranged to be unfriendly to him, as well as unpatriotic 



PUBLIC SERVANT 297 

and foolish. When I think of this it puzzles me, as well 
as it must Russia, that any Irishman should ever vote 
with the Democratic party in this country so long' as that 
party favors free trade. 

kt If Canada should join the Union, England would 
coax us to build the Isthmian Canal. She would like to 
have it built anyhow. It is a better way, shorter, quicker, 
cheaper than any other from Europe to Eastern Asia. 
Great Britain is not now concerned any more to get across 
America to prevent the Bear from getting out of Russia. 
He is out. While England has been fooling with the 
Boers in South Africa, the Bear has got a highway to the 
Pacific through China. It is all he wants. He owns it 
and is immovably in possession. So, England would 
like to see the canal built on general principles. But 
she likes to bargain. So long as she has the Canadian 
route she will continue to dicker. In her soul she would 
cheerfully give Canada and all its belongings to have us 
dig the canal. That would enable her to get from ocean 
to ocean with less expense than- the Dominion entails. 
But she does not like to admit this, and does like to say, 
Til help you in this canal business, for a consideration; 
you see, I don't need the canal, I have the road across 
Canada.' But if we had Canada we'd have the canal, 
and we'd 'have' England. 

"The Democratic policy of free trade keeps Canada 
out of the Union and retards the construction of the 
canal. 

14 Chicago is going to be the greatest city in America. 
It will have a waterway to Europe by the St. Lawrence 
River. It cannot get this route in proper order for the 
immense trade it is going to carry on direct with Europe 



298 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

without trans-shipment until the St. Lawrence is under 
United States control. As that control is needed for 
Chicago's purpose, Chicago will endeavor to procure it. 
The easiest way will be to bring about annexation. As 
that can be best accomplished through a sufficiently pro- 
tective tariff, it stands to reason that Chicago will find a 
way to make the Democratic unpatriotic policy of free 
trade, which pays Canada to remain a foreign country, 
so odious and so unpopular that Canada will find it to 
her interest to come into the United States, where she 
belongs, and get the American market by the best pos- 
sible method, paying the same taxes for it that we pay. 
"The Protective policy is so essentially American, it 
is so beneficial in every way, and it is so patriotic, as 
this application of it shows, that one would think the 
opposite policy too hateful for any man living in this 
country to espouse." 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



OPPOSES FREE CHINESE IMMIGRATION— SOME NEW AND CONVINC- 
ING ARGUMENTS. 



THE organization started in this country five years 
ago by Wong Chin Foo, under the name of the 
"Chinese Equal Rights League," is, according to reports 
from Washington, to be placed under the active super- 
vision of the Chinese Embassy. Wong Chin Foo died in 
Shanghai recently, while on a visit to his family, and 
the League has since his death been rather inactive. 
Wong had his American headquarters in Chicago, and 
the proclaimed object of his organization was to secure 
the right of suffrage, now denied, to Chinamen of 
Oriental birth permanently residing in this country. 
Under its new management the League will broaden its 
scope and work with all its strength to create public 
opinion in favor of doing away with the policy of exclu- 
sion, which at present prevents Chinese labor from com- 
ing into the United States. The Exclusion Act expires 
within the next year, and the League hopes to be 
able to prevent a renewal of the law. This Chinese 
society is rich and powerful, having its membership skill- 
fully spread all over the country and into Hawaii and 
the Philippines. Under the direction of the astute Wu 
Ting Fang it would prove to be a most potent factor in 
educating the American mind towards the Chinaman's 
side of the question. One of the arguments already put 

299 



300 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

out by the League is that a continuance of the policy of 
exclusion will result in such prejudice in China as to 
imperil our chances of obtaining a fair share of the com- 
ing vast trade of that empire. 

The Manufacturers' Association of Illinois represents 
firms employing 300,000 mechanics and laborers within 
the state. Its Board of Directors has headquarters in 
Chicago, and is about as alert a body as there is to-day 
in this country in the task of studying international 
trade conditions. The men composing this directory 
have thoroughly perceived the reasons underlying the 
colossal railroad combinations seeking Pacific outlets for 
American productions; they understand the possibilities 
of Oriental trade in their bearing on the future of Chi- 
cago and Illinois, and are as well informed and as well 
qualified to speak with knowledge and authority upon 
the commercial phase of the Chinese question as any 
business men in the United States. . 

For the purpose of ascertaining the opinion of Illi- 
nois manufacturers respecting the new aspect which the 
Chinese question is assuming in the country, a reporter 
was sent to interview Mr. Madden, who. besides being- 
President of the Manufacturers' Association, is Presi- 
dent and General Manager of the Western Stone Com- 
pany, which employs 2,000 men. Being asked if he 
favored the extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Mr. 
Madden replied: 

"The act, as I understand it, prohibits the admission 
to the United States of Chinese laborers, but permits the 
entry of merchants, students, travelers, and other per- 
sons who come from China to this country for purposes 
other than that of making a living by manual work. It 



PUBLIC SERVANT 301 

is about to expire, and the query is as to its renewal. 
China has not asked our Government to take action in 
the matter, and the question is not at issue yet." 

But public opinion is being formed respecting the 
question, and it is desired to know your position upon it. 
Are you in favor of continuing the exclusion of Chinese 
labor from the United States? 

44 As the matter now stands, I am in favor of continu- 
ing the exclusion. China does not freely admit foreign- 
ers to her territory. For the purposes of trade, Chris- 
tians are permitted free access to certain prescribed 
zones in a number of what are called treaty ports. In 
these zones Christians are freely allowed to go and come. 
But no Christian, unless he be a missionary, may go, 
without special permission and arrangement, anywhere 
else in the empire — not even ambassadors. Only mis- 
sionaries may go outside the treaty port zones. The 
missionaries have this privilege through a special clause 
in the Treaty of Pekin, signed after the suppression of 
the Taiping Rebellion. The rebellion was put down by 
Christian aid, and the Chinese have always maintained 
that the clause permitting missionaries free access to the 
empire was got into the treaty by unfair means. On 
this account the Celestials have always looked upon our 
missionaries as intruders in fact, and have resented their 
presence by all the kinds of persecution the natives have 
dared to use. Curzon, in 'Problems of the Far East,' 
gives the history of the alleged secret tampering with the 
treaty which makes a privileged class of the missionaries. 
As China does not permit the unrestricted immigration 
of Americans into China, why should we allow China- 
men to freely come into the United States? It would 



302 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

not be even good foolishness to throw our doors open to 
them as long as they bar their doors to us. " 

But it is believed that China is about to modernize 
and open her empire to the world. If she does and per- 
mits free access toour people, would you be in favor of 
giving her people the right of unrestricted immigration 
into this country? 

4l No, I would not even then, and for this reason: 
Good authorities, like Miss Leiter's husband, the present 
Viceroy of India, put the present population of China at 
600,000,000. When I was a boy the geographies said 
China had 400,000,000 people. We have 76,000,000 
people in the United States. According to Curzon, then, 
China has about eight times as many people as the 
United States have, and even the school books of thirty 
years ago gave her more than five times as many as we 
now have. Why should the United States permit 
600,000,000 Chinamen to have free access to this coun- 
try for the privilege of entry to China for only 
76,000,000 Americans? Why give eight for one — eight 
entries for one entry? The question of immigration 
from China is entirely different from any other immigra- 
tion question. The labor of the United States must now 
withstand the competition of all the labor that comes here 
from every one of the countries in the world between 
which and the United States there is at present free 
immigration. The task is hard enough. To make it still 
harder by subjecting American labor to a possible ava- 
lanche of competition from China — an avalanche that 
unscrupulous American contractors at any time might 
precipitate — would be a blundering crime. The very 
foolishness of proposing to allow Chinese labor free 



PUBLIC SERVANT 303 

admission to the United States to compete with strug- 
gling labor here while China will not allow even an Ameri- 
can Ambassador free admission into that empire, is a thing 
that must appeal to the Celestial as evidence of the infe- 
riority of the Western mind in business matters." 

Will not the Chinese government resent continued 
exclusion, and will not this resentment hurt American 
trade in China? 

"Not at all. The Chinese government has never 
entertained any feeling of resentment towards this 
country because of our exclusion of Chinese labor. If 
we had put up the bars against all classes of Chinese 
people, Pekin would not have demurred. China herself 
set the example of exclusion, and, still believing it good, 
cannot object to other nations following it. China has 
been irritated at our attempts to keep out the classes we 
agreed to let in. Our immigration agents, in their zeal 
to protect American labor against Chinese immigration, 
have often detained students travelers and merchants 
from China, who have had the right under the law to 
come in. This has been done generally because of sus- 
picion that the prisoners were really laborers attempting 
under disguise to evade the law. Naturally, the Pekin 
government would be irritated at attempts to keep out 
of the United States any Chinaman we had agreed to let 
in, even though willing, in the first place, to have all 
its subjects barred out as it bars all foreigners out. 
China's irritation has never been because of our exclu- 
sion policy itself, but solely because of breach of contract 
in the method of carrying out the exclusion act to which 
she consented. 

44 In my opinion China never cared a cash whether we 



304 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

let her people in or not, and I don't think she cares now. 
If ever China opens her empire to free immigration, 
then she may bring the question up. She cannot well do 
it before that time. When the question comes up, if it 
ever arises, China will only ask that a limited number of 
her people be allowed to enter those countries from 
which she will permit unrestricted immigration. The 
size of her population will preclude her from making any 
other demand, and her interest will be to keep her labor- 
ers at home and to obtain immigration rights for her 
mercantile classes. I say this because I believe that China 
is soon to become the greatest food buyer in the world, and, 
so far as the number of employed goes, the greatest man- 
ufacturing country. Her condition now is like what Eng- 
land's was when England found her population exceed- 
ing the ability of her land to feed. She abandoned agri- 
culture as a pursuit and went into manufacture. Since 
doing that England has become the richest and the most 
powerful nation in the Old World. China's population is 
now greater than her exhausted land can feed. Her 
only hope lies in following the example of England. 
Her statesmen know this, and they have brought the 
present Emperor to fully realize it. The events of the 
recent war have rendered Kwang-Su independent of the 
Dowager Empress. He will be firm on the throne on his 
return to Pekin. He will quickly modernize China after 
the example of his friend, the Mikado of Japan. Then 
China will become a manufacturing nation and buy its 
food. The Chinaman will never buy anything he can 
make for himself. He will compete against the whole 
present civilized world in manufactures, having all the 
necessary raw material in great abundance. But he can- 



PUBLIC SERVANT 305 

not raise his food. He will have to buy that. Chinese 
statesmen calculate that in following- the example of 
England China- will become as much more powerful and 
as much richer than England as she outnumbers England 
in population. That is a reasonable calculation. To us 
it means that China will buy from us many times as 
much food as England does. Good economists figure that 
the trade in food to China alone will in the near future 
equal in value our entire present foreign trade to 
Europe. That means that every acre of land between 
Chicago and the Pacific coast capable of yielding a cereal 
will be coaxed into cultivation; that capital will find one 
of its most profitable employments in furnishing irriga- 
tion to the West; that the densest and most prosperous 
population in the United States will be the agricultural 
population west of the Alleghanies, and that Chicago, 
the manufacturing and financial metropolis of this region, 
will be the largest and the richest city in this country. 

Then you don't believe, Mr. Madden, that our exclu- 
sion policy will injure our chances in Chinese trade? 

4t In my opinion our exclusion policy will cut no figure 
at all in our efforts to obtain trade in China. China 
never cared, and does not now care, whether we let her 
laborers come here or keep them out. Nor do the Chi- 
nese people themselves care. China never lifted a finger 
to encourage Chinese emigration to the United States. 
Practically no Chinese have ever sought to leave China 
to settle elsewhere. Practically no Chinamen have ever 
come here to live from any of the eighteen provinces of 
the empire except the coolies of Canton. Most: of these 
were coaxed over by the builders of the Pacific railroads 
because of the scarcity of laborers in the Far West, and 

20 



306 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

were left to shift for themselves when the roads were 
finished. Most of these coolies have always desired to 
get back home. Such of them as have been able to go 
have gone. The present census shows that there are 
17,000 less Chinamen here now than there were ten years 
ago, when we had a few more than 100,000 in the coun- 
try. The facts show that the Cantonese Chinamen are 
leaving the country gradually, and that there has been 
no desire on the part of Chinamen in any of the other 
seventeen provinces of China to come here at all. Our 
laws permit merchants and students from China*to 
enter this country. The total number of these at home 
must be about 80,000,000. They have now the right to 
swamp this country. But they do not do it, because of 
the strong hereditary disposition of the Chinaman to 
remain at home and of the filial arrangements which 
make it almost impossible for him to expatriate himself. 
There is a treaty between Mexico and China permitting 
unrestricted immigration between .the two countries. 
Diaz made it to encourage Chinese labor to come to the 
Republic, so that capital might be induced to go into the 
country and develop it, as he believed it would do if it 
could get good laborers, as the Chinese are, the peons 
being of little value. So few Chinamen from China have 
responded that Mr. George Pippey, of San Francisco, to 
save some properties bought under the stimulus of Diaz's 
treaty, has recently been scouring the Pacific coast to get 
5,000 celestials to go to Mexico under very high wages to 
dig from the earth the precious metals the native Mex- 
ican is too indolent or inefficient to extract. It is diffi- 
cult to produce an exodus from China, and the facts 
show there is no present danger of one. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 307 

44 From all this it would appear that there is nothing 
at all in the talk about the problem of Chinese immigra- 
tion. There is no such problem. The Chinese don't 
care enough about coming here to afford material for a 
problem. Hence, there is no prejudice to encounter in 
our efforts to secure trade in China. The Chinaman 
will buy our food because he wants it and we have it to 
sell. That is the reason the Englishman buys it. He 
buys it in spite of our tariffs against everything he has 
to sell us, in spite of two wars against him and a num- 
ber of jolting bluffs, and does it without even the retalia- 
tion of duties. There is no sentiment in trade, despite 
all that free traders assert. If there were, sentiment 
would all be on our side in China. The Chinese have 
seen us present with an army in their country and they 
all like us because they have seen for themselves that 
the Americans are the fairest, the justest and the most 
Confucian people in all the Christian world." 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



STUDY OF A PERFECT PUBLIC SERVANT — ESSENTIAL QUALITIES HE 

MUST POSSESS. 



THE boy got to the head of every class he entered, 
either in study or at work. The youth did the 
same. So did the man. The lad began as a water car- 
rier and rose to be time-keeper. The youth started as 
draughtsman and was superintendent before he attained 
his majority. The man commenced as overseer and 
went steadily to the Presidency. In every company he 
served his progress was the same: he got to the top. He 
did it in the first, the Enterprise; in the second, the 
Consolidated; in the third, the Joliet and Crescent, 
and in the last, the Western Stone. 

In political life he joined his party organization as 
district member and became Chairman of the City Cen- 
tral Committee. 

Entering the city legislature so "green" that his party 
in that body did not know what use to make of him, in 
three years he was leader in the Council and the best 
presiding officer it ever had. Commencing as city serv- 
ant with his first sight of a law-making body in session, 
in four years he was the town's Finance Minister, its 
principal law-maker and the greatest constructive genius 
in the work of city building the municipality ever had. 

Going into state politics as a district delegate to a 
National Convention, he began with one vote, his own, 

308 



PUBLIC SERVANT 309 

the work of committing a Presidential nominee to the 
declaration of a principle essential to success, and con- 
cluded the task with his state's whole delegation demand- 
ing the declaration and able to enforce it. Chosen by 
his state's representatives at the Philadelphia Conven- 
tion to see that the party in power assembled there prop- 
erly voiced in its promised policy the wishes of Illinois 
and the West in having the cause of Labor recognized, in 
having agriculture relieved from Eastern financial dom- 
inance by the establishment of small national banks with 
local circulation, and in having the inter-oceanic canal 
free to take the best route, he succeeded in having the 
platform remodeled to conform to the whole purpose of 
his mission. 

What enabled the boy, the youth, the man, the public 
servant, to accomplish these things — to succeed in every 
essay? There can be no doubt that the overthrow of 
the all-night ordinance, the defeat of the retention of 
illegal police, the forcing of the salvation of the Lake 
Front, the passage of the Civil Service Reform Law, and 
the adoption of the word Isthmian at Philadelphia, were 
all the work of one man, Madden, alone and against odds 
that would have dismayed any other. Nor can there be 
any doubt that a very large part of the work that has 
made Chicago what it is among cities; that has given 
Illinois the place of decisive power it holds in the Repub- 
lican organization; and that has endeared the party in 
power to the people of the West, was also performed by 
him. 

What is the secret of such a man's power? Is it 
brains? Many brainy men have no influence among their 
fellow-men. Is it success? Some of the most successful 



310 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

people in the world are hated. Perhaps it lies in his 
genius for management? Several of the best business 
managers in the Union are always under bond. No: it 
is morality. The man is moral. Every person engaged 
in business in and about Chicago knows that Martin B. 
Madden is a moral man. His morality is not labeled. It 
is not professed. It is never thrust on any one. It does 
not preach, nor assert, nor lecture, nor obtrude. It never 
says * 4 I. " It has no personal pronoun. It simply exists. 
But its existence is so palpable, so certain, so definite, 
so unswervable, that people know the man can neither 
be induced to do wrong nor dissuaded by any influence 
from doing right. And then he has the perception, the 
insight, the knowledge, the wisdom to see the right at 
once. He does not have to have it pointed out to him, 
nor to be led up to it, nor to go through any sort of 
mental exercise or clarification to see it. When he looks 
at all at any subject the thing he first sees is the right 
in it. And that is the main thing. 

The oldest thought in civilization is that the real prog- 
ress of man is moral. It is held that there is latent in 
the race a sixth sense, the full possession of which will 
enable man to think and see and do wonderfully com- 
pared to what he now can. Human progress is inevitably 
towards this superiority. It is away from grossness and 
towards decarnalization. Every once in a while a good 
man so purifies himself as to unclog his mind entirely. 
His mental sight being clear, he says and sees better 
than his fellows. In all ages it has been such men who 
have led. Their number is steadily increasing and the 
race goes faster towards morality. Ir is chat far now 
that gross men, with unclean minds, are not sufficiently 



PUBLIC SERVANT 311 

moral to have influence like such men had in coarser 
times. In both public and commercial life the demand 
for virtue would now bar from success many men who 
not long ago satisfied the public eve. It is beginning to 
be realized that a really good man is more apt to be 
sufficiently able than that a merely able man is likely to 
be sufficiently good. The public has more confidence in 
virtue than in ability. Mere ability is often dangerous: 
virtue never is. In any crisis the American people, the 
most advanced in the world, will be sure to show that 
what they love most in the President and Vice-President 
of the United States now in office is not their ability, 
however that may develop, but the morality so marked 
in both men. That will be found to be the quality in 
which reposes the confidence of the greatest people in 
the world. The able man may be right part of the time: 
may be correct most of the time. The good man is sure 
to be right all the time. He cannot be anything else, 
while the other man can be, and is all the time liable to 
be. 

A line of any given length encloses the greatest area 
possible for it to surround when it is perfectly circular. 
If a man's mental line be equally distant at all points 
from his moral center it will enclose for him the great- 
est ability he is capable of. If the line be a large one 
he will be a great man. He will have the greatest 
possible average of qualities. If a man with equal length 
of line have his mental circumference drawn out at the 
end of any particular radius, it will be at the expense of 
some other radii, which will be that much shorter. Such 
a man will be conspicuous on his long line and deficient 
on several other lines. The greater the special develop- 



312 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

meat on any line the shorter will be his average on the 
other lines. His conspicuousness may be at the expense 
of all his other lines; it must be at that of several of 
them. The conspicuous man is apt to attract notice in 
ordinary times by his special talent, or development, 
which will engage attention and. distract observation 
from his shortcomings. The round man will not attract 
so much attention in ordinary times, because he will 
average like many and not project. In a great emer- 
gency the conspicuous man will fail, because his shortage 
will prevent him from averaging sufficiently. In such 
an emergency the round man will do better, because 
what he will say or do will be what the majority desire 
said or done. The round man is the great man: the 
conspicuous man is the defective man. In ordinary life 
neither Washington, Lincoln, nor Grant attracted con- 
spicuous attention; they were round men, and did not 
protrude at any special mental point. In the great 
emergencies they were called upon to fill each completely 
met expectations because his roundness enabled him to 
do and say upon all occasions what the majority wanted 
done and said. It can be seen now what a calamity it 
would have been if a conspicuous man had been called 
upon to take the place either of these round men so com- 
pletely filled. 

The average man is round. The majority are round. 
The demand in commercial and public life is for round 
men, for men who will fill the places assigned to them 
and leave no gaps or shortages. The greatest of all 
shortages is that on moral lines. Men defective there 
are at this day of moral progress the greatest of misfits 
in public or business life. 



PUBLIC SERVANT 313 

The wheel that is perfectly round, with all its spokes 
of equal length, does its work best. It attracts the least 
attention in ordinary circumstances, but lasts the longest 
and goes the farthest. The wheel whose spokes are of 
uneven length and whose tire is projected at any point, 
will attract much attention and make more noise, but it 
will not go as far, as fast, or as long. 

Martin B. Madden is a round man with a large mental 
circumference. How did he qualify himself to make his 
morality so effective > 

From his mother he acquired his decided taste for 
sound literature and his aptitude for choice expression. 
It was his mother also who gave direction to the course 
of studies he has pursued all his life. Her father had 
illustrated in his own person the value of special educa- 
tion in any line of thought. The son early realized that 
the quickest way to obtain complete and reliable informa- 
tion on any subject was to get it from recognized author- 
ities who spent all their time in gathering it. He formed 
the habit of keeping himself constantly educated by hir- 
ing special instructors to investigate subjects he desired 
to be versed in and give him the results in readings, 
writings, lectures and answers to interrogatories. He 
has kept this up, and it accounts for his surprising mas- 
tery of a vast range of knowledge. As he became 
absorbed in business affairs and had his time occupied by 
them, his liberality increased in the payments he would 
make for special information to those competent to 
furnish it. In this way he has always been a student. 
His system exemplifies the truth that tutored men often 
possess more valuable education than regular graduates, 
because they are taught skillfully and thoroughly what 



314 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

they find they need to know and are interested in learn- 
ing. Usually, the tutored seek valuable and useful 
knowledge only, rejecting all that is valueless and use- 
less, which forms so large a part of the education im- 
parted to those who must take what is offered to them in 
a regular course, prescribed on general lines. 

Mrs. Madden was extremely practical. From her the 
son undoubtedly inherited the sturdiness of his character; 
the disposition to depend upon himself; to ask no favors; 
to expect nothing except what his own exertions could 
bring; to live within his means; to save money; to 
always have funds on hand for emergencies; to live mod- 
erately and with regularity; to care for his health; to 
earn his pay; to make his services profitable to those who 
employed him; to do.everything in his power to accom- 
plish any task he was entrusted with, and M while working 
for others, never to sell goods on his own account, or for 
any other house than the one of his employer. " It was 
these principles, and especially the latter, that made him 
so valuable and efficient in the many representative posi- 
tions he has been deputed to fill in his busy career. 

It is almost impossible to get into public life men who 
will under all circumstances act solely in a representative 
way for their constituents and refrain from using office 
for other purposes than those they are elected to fill it . 
for. Martin Barnaby Madden never represented Mad- 
den, or Madden's views, or Madden's friends, in any of 
the public offices he has filled; he represented those only 
who sent him to act for them. 

In speech he has always been singularly happy. All 
his life he has been accustomed to working for men his 
superiors in age and means. This has given to him the 



PUBLIC SERVANT 315 

habit of making statements without waste and straight 
to the point. It has accustomed him to lucidity in style 
— to clear and terse diction. In the ability to make 
cogent statements on any question it is doubtful if he has 
a superior living. The business men of many of the 
principal boards of directors in Chicago believe he sur- 
passes in the stating faculty any man ever heard in the 
city. 

The method of doing business in the United States 
has evolved a class of men who are no doubt the cleverest 
adepts in real oratory in the world. If results prove the 
value of talk, then the men who have survived in the 
competition of obtaining cash orders for every argument 
they make, must be the greatest masters of telling 
speech. We would say to students of oratory, if you 
wish to study the best models of effective talk, if you 
desire to learn how to speak for actual results, study the 
style of the men who must make each argument produce 
money, and who succeed in doing it every time they 
try — study the oratory of the American Drummer. His 
style is the best of all styles for effective speech. Think 
of a man who can sell enough stone to pay large divi- 
dends on $2,500,000 of capital every year. For more than 
thirty years he has been able to sell every year more 
stone than any other man in the country. When there 
are added to such a talent for speech along experience in 
making important and responsible addresses before pow- 
erful boards of directors; a complete training in the 
method of discussion which calls for convincing statement 
without the appearance of argument, and requires the 
realizing character of inviting and persuasive language 
without waste; and a character for probity beyond ques- 



316 MARTIN B. MADDEN 

tion, as well as a sound developed morality, there result 
all the elements needed to make the truly great orator. 

At the worst, there are latent in every man the feel- 
ings of justice and of right. These have probably never 
been entirely vitiated or crushed out in any human 
being. They remain in some form even after all other 
correct feelings have been eliminated. They may be so 
weak, so very dormant, as to be nearly impossible to 
reach. But they can be reached. The true orator can 
get at them, revive them, stir them up again to life and 
make factors of them. 

Surely, something like this was done by Madden in at 
least one case in the Board of Aldermen during his career 
in. that body. And there can hardly be a doubt that he 
again performed the real orator's work when he went to 
Springfield in the latter part of March, 1895, and obtained 
the votes needed to secure the passage of the Civil Ser- 
vice Reform Bill. The right thing said by the wrong 
man any time seldom carries much weight. The right 
thing said by the right man always does. The right 
thing said by the right man at the right time never fails 
to decide. The right man is rare. The right man able 
to say the right thing is rarer; the right man possessing 
the ability to say the right thing at the right time is the 
rarest man among human kind. He is the real orator. 

And such is Martin Barnaby Madden, Public Servant. 

FINIS. 



NOV 30 1001 



NOV 29 1901 

1 COPY DEL TO CAT, CIV. 
NOV- 30 1901 



1901 



Martin B. Madden 



PUBLIC SERVAST 



■X. 



A SKETCH 

BY 

EDGAR WESTON BRENT 



CHICAGO 
7901 









LBJa','3 



